The 32X - Would something like it work today?

[atarilovesyou]

Don't all wii games that use the motion detection benefit from motion plus? I thought it was more about making the controller more motion accurate, rather than requiring specific games to take advantage of it.

[Rex Dart]

Don't all wii games that use the motion detection benefit from motion plus? I thought it was more about making the controller more motion accurate, rather than requiring specific games to take advantage of it.

 

Nope, they have to be specifically programmed to recognize & take advantage of it. If a game has no specific support for the motion plus, it'll have no effect on the game.

[Flojomojo]

Remember Virtua Racing on the Genesis? Like Star Fox on the SNES, it had extra chips inside to help render the polygon graphics. It also cost about $100 when it was new. The 32X made sense in that it would allow you to buy the extra chips just once and plug cartridges into them.

 

I think the current round of machines, even the Wii U, have enough onboard power so add-ons like this (except for storage) won't be needed. Microprocessors are getting smaller and cheaper all the time so I doubt we'll ever see a modular approach like this again, Google's weird modular phone experiment notwithstanding.

[Bill Loguidice]

As has been stated time and again, these things never work out. Even the best supported add-on never gets the same support as what's included with every console.

 

The future for this concept is likely cloud processing, as seen in services like OnLive, Gakai, etc., where most of the workload is done elsewhere and the results are streamed to a receiver. For instance, both PS4 and Xbox One support 4K displays, but it's unlikely that anything but the most basic games will be able to support it with the expected frame rate and detail. With cloud computing, the 4k could be supported while most of the processing is done elsewhere. At some point we'll have fast enough and reliable enough connections for this to be practical. For now, it's completely unnecessary.

[+Gemintronic]

They'll eventually force cloud computing on us. It'll be very ironic when you can't play a single player game because you're not connected to the Internet and the publisher has shut down its game servers.

 

On topic:

 

The big video game console makers figured out that add-ons only fragment your market. Since the market can only support two-three consoles you don't want to compete with yourself like Sega.

 

UPDATE: To be clear I totally agree with Bill I'm personally not optimistic about how big companies will use "cloud" technology.

[Bill Loguidice]

They'll eventually force cloud computing on us. It'll be very ironic when you can't play a single player game because you're not connected to the Internet and the publisher has shut down its game servers.

 

It's a double-edged sword, really. Having instant access to vast libraries of content is compelling, but there is certainly an ethereal nature to it all. It's hard to argue with, say, a Netflix-like fee of $10 - $15 a month for access to tens of thousands of games (regardless of origin platform) at the instant you want them. At that point, the idea of ownership becomes moot. It's kind of like it's nice to own Blu-rays now, but the reality is streaming is a lot more convenient and those Blu-rays do take up shelf space, need to be inserted and removed at each play, etc. Certainly one can see where the future is going in that space, and steps are being taken in our space with virtual parity between digital and traditional retail releases in the form of console and handheld digital stores, Steam, Origin, etc. In other words, we're already there except for the instant access part, i.e., it needs to be downloaded to run.

As a historian and hardcore collector, I love boxes and packaging and real systems and what-not, but it does become mountainous and unsustainable after a point, particularly as we're now 42 years into home videogame and computer systems. It will only get worse as we get more product over time. Practically speaking, my collection of 450+ platforms and countless thousands of boxed games would be far more usable virtually, and certainly free up tons of space.

Finally, I think the fear of servers being shut down, while a legitimate concern and a certainty at some point in the future for one of these major services, is something we'll just have to deal with as an inevitably of the general public preferring convenience over physical ownership. And it's not like over the millennia valuable physical materials haven't been lost to the sands of time anyway, so in many ways this is not that different, and in some ways again, can be argued that these bits being stored elsewhere are safer than having a local copy.

[+Gemintronic]

I'd say as the next generations idea of ownership and property gets diluted things like rental services and online dependent gaming become more palatable. I'll stick with media I can physically own, modify and sell as I please.

 

Again, just pessimistic as to how corporations will implement cloud computing. Sim City was not a great sign of things to come

[Keatah]

They'll eventually force cloud computing on us. It'll be very ironic when you can't play a single player game because you're not connected to the Internet and the publisher has shut down its game servers.

 

On topic:

 

The big video game console makers figured out that add-ons only fragment your market. Since the market can only support two-three consoles you don't want to compete with yourself like Sega.

 

UPDATE: To be clear I totally agree with Bill I'm personally not optimistic about how big companies will use "cloud" technology.

 

Maybe we're all gonna go back to dumb terminals like Videotex! And in the bigger scheme of things the industry will oscillate back and forth between local computing and remote computing over future generations? The speed of oscillation might simply depend on marketing whims.

 

Console add-ons and all that can get confusing, what games need what and all that.

 

 

 

 

As a historian and hardcore collector, I love boxes and packaging and real systems and what-not, but it does become mountainous and unsustainable after a point, particularly as we're now 42 years into home videogame and computer systems. It will only get worse as we get more product over time. Practically speaking, my collection of 450+ platforms and countless thousands of boxed games would be far more usable virtually, and certainly free up tons of space.

Finally, I think the fear of servers being shut down, while a legitimate concern and a certainty at some point in the future for one of these major services, is something we'll just have to deal with as an inevitably of the general public preferring convenience over physical ownership. And it's not like over the millennia valuable physical materials haven't been lost to the sands of time anyway, so in many ways this is not that different, and in some ways again, can be argued that these bits being stored elsewhere are safer than having a local copy.

 

Book scans, rom/prom/eprom images, disk images, tape images, program listings, advertisements, programmer's notes, ancient bbs files and history, mirrors of FTP websites, disks & docs, various emulators, pcb scans and layouts, databooks for the chips, source and binary codes for emulators and games/apps/os'es (where applicable), reviews, magazine scans and text pdf's, audio and video interviews, box scans, manual scans, cheats, cartridge scans, marquees, artwork, bezels, overlays, plans, diagrams, diagnostic reports, source code listings, pictures, message board dumps, prototype info, schematics, hardware project notes and plans, fpga jedec files, hardware pics, software images, manual scans, podcasts, video reviews, books manuscripts, documentation, videos, advertisements, magazine scans, notes, peripherals, cart dumps, source code, box scans(All sides), users group proceedings and newsletters, chip data sheets, dumps, new homebrews, emulator updates, your own personal contributions. I'm starting to repeat things now.

 

Emulation is an awesome solution. You can scan in everything and it would be instantly available. I feel the material would be better preserved this way as it can be migrated from old storage to new storage as time goes on. Materials don't break down. Colors and paint finished don't fade. And you can virtually re-arrange this material as you see fit. And the beauty part is that a virtual collection doesn't take up a whole lot of space. It doesn't consume your life and personal space. It's mentally liberating as well. Nothing you couldn't stuff into a breadbox!

 

An even better solution is to do all your collecting virtually while keeping 1 or 2 prized original systems from day one. This means physical systems, real ones. This allows one to remain grounded in reality and level-headed.

 

I've observed time and time again that people that do this are far happier and they can enjoy their collection in ways never thought possible.

 

 

 

 

Remember Virtua Racing on the Genesis? Like Star Fox on the SNES, it had extra chips inside to help render the polygon graphics. It also cost about $100 when it was new. The 32X made sense in that it would allow you to buy the extra chips just once and plug cartridges into them.

 

I think the current round of machines, even the Wii U, have enough onboard power so add-ons like this (except for storage) won't be needed. Microprocessors are getting smaller and cheaper all the time so I doubt we'll ever see a modular approach like this again, Google's weird modular phone experiment notwithstanding.

 

I can't ever imagine this modular phone thing ever becoming practical. Consider the connectors. They're going to become intermittent and contaminated. What about software updates for each module? We all know that companies are releasing daily updates that keep breaking things. And what about different hardware revisions as time goes on? Keeping track of the modules, losing them.. A mess to be sure.

 

No. This won't work. And it is a pet project pushed through by some kid that doesn't have shit'fer brainz.

[Flojomojo]

Going back to the original topic, I have been rediscovering my three favorite 32X games (Virtua Racing Deluxe, Virtua Fighter, Star Wars Arcade) via emulation on Ouya and the Nvidia Shield. The RetroArch emulator is nearly perfect to my eyes. I honestly don't remember if I still have my Frankengenesis 32X pieces someplace in storage, and it's nice not to care.

 

I still think those 3 games could do well with a reimagining on a modern platform. They need it way more than Crazy Taxi, which is already perfect but is undergoing a totally unnecessary remake.

[Gregory DG]

Funny, I always thought the idea of the 32X was pretty good. I mean, Nintendo was adding the FX chip, Atari was adding the POKEY to some 7800 carts, and Sega was adding the SVP (or was it SVX?) chip to it's Virtua Racing game for Genesis. Seems like it would make sense to include that extra component to an add-on then pass the cartridge through it.

 

But I think it was the execution that hurt the 32X (that, and everyone knew the PSX and Saturn were just a few months away.) I mean, the thing looks ridiculous, you need an extra power adapter to run it and on top of that you have to hook up another cable to the Genesis! Just terrible!

 

If it could have been a small innocuous add on it would probably not have been derided, even if it wasn't any more successful than the actual 32X.

Edited May 7, 2014 by Gregory DG

[Flojomojo]

It's kind of a shame the Neptune console (Genesis + 32X in one device with a single power brick) never made it out. It would have been cool to have more cartridge-based 3D type games. At least we'll always have the Nintendo 64 for that.