All you need to know on the life of 32X, Neptune and Nomad. 

32X 

32X was launched all the way back in November 1994. 
Sega's add on to the megadrive turned your 16 bit old Mega Drive into a 32 bit monster. 

Price 
Compared to the prices of the 3DO (£399), The Jaguar (£230) and the Playstation (£250) at the time, 32X (£150) was the cheapest new console on the market.  It was meant to be a real bargin to hit the console scene in a long time and would keep people from buying 3DO's and Jaguar's in favour of the Saturn a year later. 

Enhancements to the Mega Drive

The 32X uses two 32Bit RISC processors from Hitachi and these run at 23Mhz/40MIPS.  In normal words this mean that it will change your Mega Drive into a machine with more colours, faster movement of games, much improved texture mapping, rendering and generally better quality games than either the SNES or the Mega Drive could offer. 

Games At Launch 

Doom  
Being released on the same day as 32X was a brilliant idea.  PC, Jaguar and SNES owners had their own version and Sega owners wanted theirs.  Promising all the the blood, gore, graphics and sound of the PC original this was the game that supposed to draw people into the 32X like there was no tomorrow.  

Virtua Racing Delux 
A big improvement on the Mega Drive version this one was much closer to the arcade original with fantastic graphics (at the time!) and brilliant playability.  It was the definite home version of Virtua Racing with the original 3 courses perfectly replicated with 2 all new ones, a two player split screen and new cars.  

Star Wars Arcade 
Just like the arcade version, it was a brilliant shoot em up with 4 different levels, two player split screen and top Star Wars sounds! 

The rest of the games released around the launch of 32X includes: Golf's Best 36 Holes, Cosmic Carnage, Super After Burner, Super Motocross, Cyber Brawl, Stellar Assault, Metal Head, Tempo, College Basketball, Surgical Strike, Wirehead, Shadows of Atlantis, Tee Off, Thunderhawk, Soulstar and BC Racers. 

Why Did It Fail To Sell?

Even though the 32X was cheap, would improve your Mega Drive a great deal and had some brilliant games at launch Sega still managed to make a mess with this one! The biggest worry about the 32X was the fact that it was just "a bridging machine", an enhancement that was just bringing the gap between the technology of today (two years ago!) and the technology of tomorrow.  A lot of people were worried that in about a year's time games and games machines would be so far advanced (with the release of the upgrade for the 3DO (which never came out), the Ultra 64 (now Nintendo 64), the Playstation and Sega's own Saturn hitting the streets that the Mega Drive would look like an old NES. 

So that's why it failed, not enough people bought the machine and Sega's lack of marketing and advertising didn't help either.  Also the fact that Sega were more worried on the launch of the Saturn and having everything right for that left the 32X in neglect.  Very few great games came out after the launch (apart from a good conversion of Virtua Fighter) and the 32X faded away.  The Neptune was supposed to bring up sales of the 32X and the games (more later) but it never came out. 

Neptune 

In what was hoped would bring up sales of both 32X and Mega CD the Neptune would combine both systems together with the Mega Drive so you could get 32BIT power from new Mega CD games.   
 

Price

Price was never officially announced but around the price of £200 was heavily rumoured.  For £200 you'd get a Mega Drive, Mega CD and 32X all in one and a few rumoured demo's packed in. 

Release

The Neptune was scheduled to be released in Autumn 95 and that February when it was announced Sega stated "This reinforces our commitment to the 32X for the next couple of years" Sega UK waffled unconvincingly. 

What Happened?

However as time went on nothing ever happened.  No games were announced specifically for the Neptune and no one knew what was going on.  Later on that year Sega finally announced due to 32X and Mega CD sales and lack of support from 3rd Parties, the Neptune would be canned. 

Nomad 

Details released in November 1995 about what would be the successor to the Game Gear but never made it out in Europe.   

Design

The Nomad was a 16-bit portable unit with a three and a quarter inch full colour screen.  It featured six button controls and was designed for use of six AA batteries, the Nomad PowerPack rechargeable battery pack (these were meant to give three hours time) or an AC adapter. 

Price 

When the Nomad came out in the USA it was priced around  
$400 which was just a bit to much for a handheld if you know what I mean! 

Games 

All 600 Mega Drive games worked on it with new ones making specific use of the handheld.  Best news of all was that it allowed proper two player games as it incorporated a port for you to plug in a separate Mega Drive control pad. 

Why Didn't It Come Out In Europe? 

My guess is anyone's but the idea of the Nomad was a great one.  Maybe it was due to the Saturn being beaten by the Playstation and due to money it wouldn't be possible.  Also the fact that it had a $400 price tag not many people would buy it over the cheaper Gameboy.  A pity really but I'm sure that in the next couple of years we will see another handheld from Sega and in fact rumours have started already over a new one.  Let's hope their true and that Sega can make a great handheld that doesn't cost much and has some great games.  If I here any info at all on it I'll let you know. 

Why Did It Fail?

The price tag most likely and lack of support from Sega. I'd like to know more about the Nomad so if anyone has any information on the Nomad or if anyone has one please E-mail with the info and I'll put it up. 
 
-- Written By Matthew Langan