Sega Super 32X
The Sega Super 32X was a video game console by Sega distributed in Japan.For more information on the North American version, see: Sega Genesis 32X. For more information on the European and Australian Versions of this console, see: Sega Mega 32X.
With the release of the Super Famicom in Japan and the Super NES in North America, Sega needed to leapfrog Nintendo in the technological department. The Sega Mega-CD aka Sega CD hadn't worked as well as they wanted it to. Sega had various developments underway, named after planets. Some used System 16 technology like the Sega Megadrive and Sega Genesis did, as well as other arcade games.
On January 8, 1994, Hayao Nakayama, then CEO of Sega, ordered his company to make a 32-bit cartridge based console that would be in stores by Christmas 1994. This would at first be named "Project Jupiter", but after Sega found CD technology cheaper, they decided to modify it instead of dropping the cartridge project. Hideki Sato and some other Sega of Japan engineers came over to collabarate about the project with Sega of America's Joe Miller. The first idea was a new Sega Megadrive with more colors and a 32-bit processor. Miller thought that an add-on to the Megadrive would be a better idea, because he felt that gamers would not buy an improved version of the Megadrive. And so, this project was codenamed Project Mars, and Sega of America was going to shape the project.
At the same time, however, Sega of Japan was working on the Sega Saturn, a CD-based 32-bit videogame system. Sega of America did not learn of this until Project Mars was already in progress.
The Sega 32X was released in December 1994 in Japan. The system cannot work by itself. The Sega 32X can only be used in conjunction with a Sega Megadrive; it is plugged in where the cartridge bay is. Besides playing its own cartridges, it also acted as a passthrough for Megadrive games so it would be a permanent attachment. The 32X came with 10 coupons and several spacers, so it would work with all versions of the Megadrive.
Almost all of the games released for the Japanese market had already been released in the United States, albiet some had different names.
This console had no chance in Japan, due to the fact that the Sega Megadrive was not that in that country, and that the 32X was also shunned worldwide. The system ended production in 1996.
Technical Specifications
