Talk:Sega Genesis/Archive 9

DESIGN FLAWS
Hey guys, I just made a call to my local game shop and I found out that the Sega Genesis has some bad design flaws that cause them to fail a lot, and this game store has a 3 month warranty on used game systems(particularly the genesis). I think this should be metioned as both a warning and something so people know about these design flaws(not the stuff on the store as Wikipedia is not an ad). I just thought i should mention this as its important to a lot of gamers. Thank you and goodnite,Zakkman (talk) 03:16, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * What. The things are practically indestructible - consoles 15 and 20 years old are frequently in perfect working order. You need a lot more than unsourced statements and weasel words to warrant the inclusion of such things in the article. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:34, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * There should be some decent sources that talk about the known defects of the initial run of Mega Drive/Genesis units. I remember that, like with many first-run consoles, the first batches of Genesis consoles had a fairly high DOA rate (about 5% if I recall correctly), mostly due to one or two chips overheating and burning out.  IIRC, these failures occurred mostly in the RAM and a chip involved in the display, but the CPU was fine in almost every case.  Of course, I'm pulling these out of memory at the moment and do not have a reliable source at the moment.


 * Then again, since virtually every console release has an initial period with higher DOAs than later consoles, this is not likely to be terribly notable. &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 18:25, 20 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I've a vague memory that an overheating voltage regulator was one of the problems. But that's from memory, so I may be getting confused with something else. - X201 (talk) 20:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Downsizing of the Console Wars Sections
The console wars section used to be more detailed, showing the level of success for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis in each important region of the world, put it back this way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.192.36.120 (talk) 10:36, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If you have reliable sources, particularly for Europe, please let us know. Although, looking at the January 1, 2008 version I don't see much of anything there that isn't in the current version. Anomie⚔ 15:07, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You have to look much further back to see what I'm talking about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.192.36.120 (talk) 18:26, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Power Base Converter compatibility
Article says that only one game is incompatible, I'm pretty sure this is inaccurate. I don't have access to my manual right now, but IIRC there was a longer list (though not many) of incompatible games, and from personal experience the Carmen Sandiego game was one of them. Ham Pastrami (talk) 06:26, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah, just to show that I'm not completely full of it, here is a forum link: which states that the games cannot be played with the MD/Genesis controllers (i.e. you would have to plug in a SMS controller). Ham Pastrami (talk) 06:43, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

New games!
Apparently 2002 was not the end for the Mega Drive, 4 new games are being made:
 * "Tec Toy has licensed four EA games and ported them to the Mega Drive, which means official big-budget titles well after the death of the console in the West and Asia (sorry Beggar Prince). The games are Fifa 2008, Need for Speed Pro Street, The Sims 2, and Sim City - ports of mobile games, according to the text on the site (it says versão mobile)." 69.177.235.86 (talk) 09:10, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Name is wrong
Sega is an American company. It was started by two Americans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.122.119.33 (talk • contribs)
 * But it is now a Japanese company, and Mega Drive is used in Europe (UK, Gibraltar, Ireland speak English) WhisperToMe (talk) 20:01, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * See previous discussions above for more reasons. Malpass93 (talk) 06:49, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It is also important to mention that by the time this system was released the company had already moved to Japan. --76.71.213.101 (talk) 17:09, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

The original and most common name of the system is Mega Drive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.226.81 (talk) 23:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

News,News the revival of the Mega Drive
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=210507 http://www.play.com/Gadgets/Gadgets/4-/8922102/Sega-Mega-Drive-Console-With-15-Games/Product.html#

the company Blaze is making a redo for the mega drive. i have added it to the page - badly - it needs a pic and the stations and eventually now info added. from Alekey86.146.52.176 (talk) 23:03, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Tec Toy's handheld
It should be made clear in the article that the Tec Toy handheld device is not a gaming console in the sense as the word is commonly used. It is a playable collection of some Mega Drive games, but not a system. This is all the more important has it is (falsely) being sold and advertised as a "Mega Drive" in many countries now (e.g., in Germany). --217.232.223.117 (talk) 09:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Fourth Generation capabiltites
Tell me if I am wrong, but the Sega Mega Drive was superior to the Turbografix 16 and inferior to the SNES in terms of techs and specs, however in terms of primative 3d games like Hard Drivin and Race Drivin it is superior to the SNES. Should this be mentioned in this article? mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 18:22, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Superior/inferior depends on what you consider important. Both the SNES and the PCE/TG16 had technical strengths over the others, which depending on the game gave an advantage to one or the other. I believe shmups (and surprisingly Capcom's SFII) was best on the PCE while sports titles tended to run better on the MD.


 * Did the MD do 3D better? Probably, but do you have a reliable source stating this and - more importantly - is a comparison with another console within the scope of this article?--Anss123 (talk) 07:02, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, I'll find a link for that then. mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 16:12, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Also, please keep in mind that "superior/inferior" is inherently POV and should be used with extreme care. Be careful to phrase whatever you add to the article in terms of objective comparisons (faster clock speed, machine better suited to a type of graphics, etc.) and published industry reviews and reception, so as to keep the article neutral. &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 18:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok then, great care will be taken. mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 15:26, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

"Sega Mega Drive" moved to "Mega Drive"
Per a discussion on WT:VG, I've changed the article's title from "Sega Mega Drive" to just "Mega Drive", since the official name of the product does not actually include the company's name (unlike "Sega Master System" and "Nintendo Entertainment System"). While a number of the references in this article do refer to it as the "Sega Mega Drive", that's technically incorrect - Sega's own press releases and documentation refer to it as just "Mega Drive" in non-US regions, and "Genesis" in the USA.

As such, there are a LOT of linked pages and categories named after "Sega Mega Drive" (like "List of Sega Mega Drive games") that need to be updated. &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 00:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I've taken care of all of the double redirects. - X201 (talk) 14:54, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * BTW, my apologies for not starting discussion here or notifying the editors here about the discussion on WT:VG. I'll make sure to do a better job of that in the future. :) &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 18:15, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Blast Processing
I've been interested in the term "Blast Processing", in terms of what it meant and how it was used during Sega's campaign against Nintendo. I vividly remember when it was first used in ads and commercials for Sonic 2, and even then I knew it was basically a crackpot term (at one point I heard someone in the industry refer to it as the "biggest industry joke in years"). But it's been difficult to find much public discussion or material about it specifically - it seems that most sites just consider it a footnote in the overall console war.

I've been seeing more discussion about it surfacing in the last year or so, and Issue 61 of Retro Gamer Magazine has a detailed statement about it from an interview with the guy responsible for marketing the Sega CD in the USA. He said that he felt he should take "some responsibility" for the Blast Processing term, since it arose from an in-house discussion on a hardware trick that was being exploited in Sonic 2 and some other games at the time. I have a copy of the issue at home and will grab the relevant excerpt tonight or tomorrow.

The term "Blast Processing" really did become sort of an industry joke, regarded as a "cheap shot" on Sega's part by many in the industry, and I remember it playing a significant role in the boost in the Genesis's popularity at the time, as well as its rapid downfall when the SNES proved to be the superior console. (Basically, the term itself came back to bite Sega.) I'm surprised at how little publicity remains about it today, tho.

Does anyone else have information on this that would be relevant to the article and/or an article about Sega itself or general console history? &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 18:10, 20 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Here's the full excerpt from the Retro Gamer article. "Retroinspection: Mega-CD", Retro Gamer Issue 61, Page 84, interview with Scot Bayless.


 * Take the infamous 'Blast Processing' boast, for example. "Sadly I have to take responsibility for that ghastly phrase," admits Bayless with a grimace. "One of our programmers called Marty Franz discovered that you could do this nifty trick by hooking the scan line interrupt and firing off a Direct Memory Access at just the right time.  The result was that you could effectively jam data onto the graphics chip while the scan line was being drawn - which meant you could drive the Digital-to-Analogue Converters with 8 bits per pixel.  Assuming you could get the timing just right, you could effectively draw 256 colour static images.  There were all kinds of subtleties to the timing and the trick didn't work reliably on all iterations of the hardware, but you could do it and it was cool as heck.  So during the run-up to the Western launch of Mega-CD the PR guys interviewed me about what made the platform interesting from a technical perspective and somewhere in there I mentioned the fact that you could just 'blast data into the DACs'.  They loved the word 'blast' and the next thing I knew 'Blast Processing' was born."


 * &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 02:52, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Technical discussion
I reverted an edit that explained the term "Blast Processing" in terms of the system's CPU speed (being twice as fast as that of the SNES). While the tech specs do say that, the marketing term actually didn't have anything to do just with the CPU speed, but with the entire system's hardware. While it wasn't explained to the public in so many words, both the 1UP and Retro Gamer sources state that it was in reference to hardware tricks that the Genesis could perform and the SNES couldn't (and the excerpt above explains it in detail). That trick would be possible even if the CPU speed were the same in both systems and all other things being equal. So it's an oversimplification of the issue to state that the term referred solely to the processor speed of the machine. Feel free to discuss. &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 19:08, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

16/32-bit
In an effort to avoid another revert war over this issue, here's a discussion on how to classify the Mega Drive in terms of what bit level it is (16- or 32-bit, or some hybrid, like 16/32-bit).

The Mega Drive is based on a Motorola 68000 CPU, which has a few 32-bit functions while sitting on a 16-bit bus. However, the system itself is strictly 16-bit - its memory bus and all of the functions that it actually uses in the CPU are 16-bit, and none of the 32-bit hardware in the processor was ever utilized. Also, the system was strongly marketed as 16-bit, and while I know that's not a strict measure of how a system should be represented, it lends credence to the technical implications I'm stating here. Therefore, to call it a 16/32-bit system based on the latent capabilities of the CPU is misleading to the majority of readers, who are probably not aware of the CPU's architecture or the exact implementation used.

Also, if the 32-bit statement comes from the fact that a 32-bit accessory (the Sega 32X) was made for it, this would also be misleading, as the attachment doesn't cause a 16-bit system to become 32-bit. Instead, it "hybridizes" the system by adding a separate processor and data bus.

Finally, I am not aware of any controversy or dispute in any reliable sources as to whether the Mega Drive is a "true" 16-bit system, unlike some other systems that have claimed to have a particular architecture but could be proven not to be. The two examples I'm thinking of are the Atari Jaguar and the Intellivision (the former was marketed as 64-bit, but there is a fair amount of discussion about whether that's a true claim, and the latter is technically 16-bit but was never marketed as such, and its graphic capabilities are far more primitive). So, I think the proper designation for this system is "16-bit". &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 16:46, 4 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I was under the impression the "16-/32-bit" referred to the CPU, not the system as a whole. In that respect the CPU is no different from the budget 386SX CPU which is a 32 bit CPU sitting on a 16-bit external bus.  If I had an old 386SX IBM PC you would not call it "16 bit".  You would call it "32 bit" because that's the kind of arithmetic-logic the central processor performs.  The fact the bus is "narrow" doesn't change the fact that it's still 32-bit CPU.  Same reasoning applies to the 68000.    Theaveng (talk) 17:41, 4 May 2009 (UTC)


 * But the difference, as is actually stated in the article ON that processor, is that the 68000 CPU is not, in fact, a true 32-bit processor. "For instance, the CPU registers are 32 bits wide, though few self-contained structures in the processor itself operate on 32 bits at a time."  The 386SX was a "discount CPU" with reduced functionality, yes, but it is still from a 32-bit line and is structured quite differently from the 68000.


 * Additionally, the designation of the console is based on the overall architecture of the system. The data bus and graphics subsystems are all 16-bit, and as I mentioned earlier, while the CPU is capable of some 32-bit work, it was never actually utilized in that way in the console (unlike in many of the computers that also used it).  So the technical capabilities of the CPU take a back seat in this case to the more limited capabilities of its supporting hardware. &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 18:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)


 * "the 68000 CPU is not, in fact, a true 32-bit processor" - It runs all 32-bit software whether that software was written for a 68040, 68020, or 68000. The article states that too.    "the designation of the console is based on the overall architecture of the system" By that statement, the Nintendo 64 is not 64 bits, so I believe your reasoning is flawed.  The bitness is based upon the CPU since it is the thing that executes the program.     Theaveng (talk) 16:22, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * My main point of reasoning is that it doesn't matter what the CPU is capable of doing. If the CPU only ever executes 16-bit instructions even though it CAN execute 32-bit instructions, it's still a 16-bit system. &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 19:14, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * BTW, my argument here also has corroboration in modern technology. Current-generation AMD and Intel CPUs are capable of running both 32-bit and 64-bit code in hardware, and thus when referred to in terms of the hardware only, they're properly called 64-bit systems.  But when you put a 32-bit OS on the machine, it is not possible at that point to run 64-bit code on the processor, and the system as a whole (including both hardware and software) is referred to as 32-bit.  The working definition of the system depends on both hardware capabilities and method of use, and can change as the individual pieces change. &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 19:20, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Also, as Thumperward points out below, this discussion is straying a bit outside of what reliable sources give us, and that's where the vast majority of information on WP should come from. All the reliable sources we have right now about the Mega Drive/Genesis refer to it as a 16-bit system, even when they acknowledge that it has a CPU capable of executing 32-bit code.  If you can find a reliable source that differs here and states that it's actually a hybrid or 32-bit system, I'd be interested in seeing it. &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 23:10, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I see your point, but the flaw in that logic is a 68000 can not run 16-bit software. If the attempt was made, it would crash very quickly.   Theaveng (talk) 17:38, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * This is the very first time I've ever seen anyone make that statement, and it seems to directly contradict the article on the 68000. Can you point me to a reliable source that actually states this? &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 03:37, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The [68000] article does not say what you claim it says. I suggest you re-read it.  As for my claim, the 68000 was the first in a line of 32-bit CPUs - it never needed to run anything but 32 bit code, because it did not need to be backwards compatible with any previous unit.     Theaveng (talk) 11:28, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The article states that it was forward compatible with all future 32-bit processors in the same line. It's capable of executing 32-bit code.  But this does not mean it could only execute 32-bit code, and this passage from the article would seem to suggest that it had a 16-bit instruction set: "With only 56 instructions the minimal instruction size was huge for its day at 16 bits. Furthermore, many instructions and addressing modes added extra words on the back for addresses, more address-mode bits, etc."


 * Once again, I challenge you to cite a reliable source that refutes what's in the 68000 article, and more importantly, states that the Mega Drive/Genesis should be properly referred to as a 32-bit console. So far, I've seen nothing except unsourced conjecture about technical details of the CPU itself.  (To be fair, I don't have a source to point you to about the CPU running 16-bit code in the Mega Drive, but I do remember my father complaining about the limited instruction set when he was developing games for the Sega-CD.) &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 16:39, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * There's nothing to argue here. Nobody has ever referred to the Mega Drive as a "16/32-bit system", so we won't. End of story. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:10, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * There are cases in which a marketing definition (in this case, "16-bit") may differ from the technically correct definition for a system. Again, I point to the Jaguar, where there is genuine debate over whether calling it "64-bit" is actually correct or not. &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 19:14, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * In cases where there is genuine debate in reliable sources, yes (I note that the PC Engine was always one of these). In cases like this, where regardless of the hybrid nature of the 68000 no RS has ever referred to the Mega Drive as a hybrid system, no. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:36, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Noted. I'm just pointing out that I think it's a legitimate topic to discuss here.  I'm very leery of people saying "end of discussion" like that.  I'm not saying we should debate about it ad nauseum, but I believe Theaveng has some legitimate points to make, and that I have decent arguments against them.  That's how the consensus process works.  I referred to your point in the thread above, though - it's a good point. &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 23:10, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * You might want to check out talk:Amiga and its archives, where I've previously argued this exact point regarding contemporary coverage of the Amiga, which nobody in the 90s ever referred to as anything except 16-bit. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:23, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Well..... having *lived* in that era, people did refer to the Macintoshes, the Atari STs, and the Amigas as both 16 and 32 bit units. In fact that's where the title for ST comes from: "Sixteen-Thirtytwo".  To say people circa 1985 were not aware of this 16-bit databus/32-bit CPU is to distort reality.   Theaveng (talk) 17:45, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I'm asking for more comments on this topic in WT:VG. I see three possible (and legitimate) definitions for a console's "bitness", so I want to make sure I understand what the consensus is on this before I argue further. The ones I see are (1) CPU capabilities alone (Theaveng's position), (2) Overall architecture of the hardware (memory bus, coprocessors, etc. - my position), and (3) Marketing and strictly what the sources say (Thumperward's position). I think all three arguments have merit, but I suspect that in terms of policies, Thumperward's position is the strongest. I hope that getting further comment from the project will help. &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 19:41, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Kiefer, I'm a long-time 680x0 programmer (for the past 20 years or so!), hopefully I can clarify the situation here. The 68000 is just like your 80386SX; from a programmer's perspective, it's a 32-bit system. All the instructions can specify what size of data they'd like to operate on; 8, 16 or 32 bits. All the registers are 32 bits wide from the start. By comparison, the 80286, released 3 years after the 68000, only has 16 bits wide registers, which had to be complemented with new registers in the 80386 to widen them to 32 bits. 80386 programmers needed to use new instruction modes to do 32 bit computation that simply didn't exist in the 80286. 680x0 programmers had 32 bit computation throughout the entire processor line. This is referred to as the word size.


 * All 680x0 code is 32 bit code; 32 bit addressing, 32 bit data. For example, the instruction move.l d0,(a1) copies the full 32 bits of register d0 into the 32 bit memory address referenced by register a1.


 * But, as you know, the 68000's data bus is only 16 bits wide, and its address bus is only 24 bits wide. This is the real thing that matters in a system. On a 68000, my example instruction would need two 16 bit writes to memory, while the same instruction would only need one 32 bit write on a 68020. Hence that's why we call a 68000 a "16/32 bit" system.


 * While the Megadrive does contain this 32-bit-inside/16-bit-outside 68000, all the other chips in the box have 16 bit or just 8 bit registers, so there's no big incentive to write code that pushes 32 bit numbers about all the time, when you could push 16 bit numbers about and be twice as fast. The Amiga and Atari were much the same; their support chips all had 16 bit registers, if you wrote a 32 bit value, you were actually writing two values to two different registers! Along with the marketing and the big "16 BIT" lettering embossed on the front of the machine, this is why the Megadrive is just "16 bit" while the 68000 inside it is "16/32 bit". Kyz (talk) 00:00, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Cool, thanks for the insight. So, based on that, it would be accurate to say that the processor in the Mega Drive is either 32-bit or "16/32-bit", but that the system as a whole (the subject of the article) is "16-bit".  The issue above was that the system was being notated as "16/32", which a number of us felt was incorrect given the available info.  What's your take on that? &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 01:34, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter if it was 32-bit or not, 32-bit instructions are never really that useful and is mostly just marketing hype from Motorola to hide the 68000's weaknesses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.58.42.188 (talk) 00:01, 16 August 2009 (UTC)