How Sega Built the Genesis

BigusSchmuck · 09/24/2015, 03:21 PM

http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/2/3/7952705/sega-genesis-masami-ishikawa
Very interesting article.

elmer · 09/24/2015, 05:31 PM

Thanks for that, I hadn't seen it.

As someone that had to program the damned thing, I've always wanted to know WTF the brain-damaged thinking was behind some of the design decisions on the Genesis.

I guess that this pretty much sums it up ...

QuoteQ: Did games developers and designers have any input into how the hardware was designed?

A: The process was not like it is today — we did not ask software developers for opinions. We simply had a one-way meeting when we finished drafting the specs.

It's what I love most about the PCE ... the people that designed it actually thought about how it would be used. IMHO, the PCE is by far the best design of the 4th gen machines.

Yes, the SNES and the Genesis can definitely do some pretty tricks that the PCE can't ... but overall, I much prefer the PCE's design tradeoffs to those that the SNES and Genesis made.

Dicer · 09/24/2015, 06:30 PM

From the article...

QuoteThe biggest hurdle was the size of the chip. We wanted to include enlarging and minimizing capabilities as well as sprite-spinning functionality, but the circuit design was becoming too large to fit on one chip, which would have lowered the production yield rate and hiked up costs, so we had to remove it from the spec. The number of available colors was also limited by the size of the circuit structure.

Tis a shame, always felt the color palette on the Genny was lacking, while some games work quite wonderfully with the constraint, others do not.

The original vision would have been a beefy beast.

BigusSchmuck · 09/24/2015, 06:34 PM

Quote from: Dicer on 09/24/2015, 06:30 PMFrom the article...

QuoteThe biggest hurdle was the size of the chip. We wanted to include enlarging and minimizing capabilities as well as sprite-spinning functionality, but the circuit design was becoming too large to fit on one chip, which would have lowered the production yield rate and hiked up costs, so we had to remove it from the spec. The number of available colors was also limited by the size of the circuit structure.
Tis a shame, always felt the color palette on the Genny was lacking, while some games work quite wonderfully with the constraint, others do not.

The original vision would have been a beefy beast.

Well yeah if they actually used identical specs as with System 16 that would have been amazing yet extremely expensive. This thread comes into mind: http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?18402-Sega-Genesis-vs-System-16

CrackTiger · 09/24/2015, 06:58 PM

Quote from: BigusSchmuck on 09/24/2015, 06:34 PM
Quote from: Dicer on 09/24/2015, 06:30 PMFrom the article...

QuoteThe biggest hurdle was the size of the chip. We wanted to include enlarging and minimizing capabilities as well as sprite-spinning functionality, but the circuit design was becoming too large to fit on one chip, which would have lowered the production yield rate and hiked up costs, so we had to remove it from the spec. The number of available colors was also limited by the size of the circuit structure.
Tis a shame, always felt the color palette on the Genny was lacking, while some games work quite wonderfully with the constraint, others do not.

The original vision would have been a beefy beast.
Well yeah if they actually used identical specs as with System 16 that would have been amazing yet extremely expensive. This thread comes into mind: http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?18402-Sega-Genesis-vs-System-16

System-16 has bad color bottlenecks as well. Classic games don't hold up as well as you remember if you take a good look today.

I'd rather have the Genesis we got.

xcrement5x · 09/25/2015, 11:42 AM

Interesting article, and it reminds me again I would love to pick up that book.

The lack of dev input is sad but makes sense to a degree. It's a shame there was not more of a team that helped as much with the design, it sounds like additional heads could have helped refine the design and possible led to additional improvements. If only Sega had known the lack of colors would be the thing everything still considers a weakness to the system they might have thrown a bit more into it all.

CrackTiger · 09/25/2015, 12:10 PM

They were thinking more about what games at the time were like, not about the large sized games that would come faster than expected, nor genres like 1-on-1 fighting games.

glazball · 09/25/2015, 02:50 PM

Damn what a great article, thanks for sharing it