Details

The Mega CD (Sega CD) was launched all the way back in 1992 and was one of the very first CD consoles.  Although it wasn't a console but an add on to the Mega Drive.  For the first time gamers would be able to experience better sound, FMV's and bigger games. 

Price 

When the Mega CD was launched it cost a big price of $299 in America which unfortunately turned a lot of people's heads away.  This was due to the technology being so new. 

Enhancements To The Megadrive 

Now this is where the big downfall came.  Being new, everyone expected the Mega CD to give the Mega Drive a big push which would make the Mega Drive capable of being able to display much bigger sprites and more of them all on screen at once but it simply couldn't do that. 

Processor: Motorola 68,000 12.5 MHz. 
Sound: 8 channels PCM. 8bit, 32kHz max-sampling rate. 
RAM: 6 megabits of main RAM. 
Graphics: Mode 7 style scaling and rotation. 

What this basically means is that with this add on your Mega Drive can produce good FMV's, better sound and hardware scaling. 

Games for the Mega CD 

Since I'm not too sure of the games at launch I'll tell you about some of the best games for the add on. 

Lunar: Eternal Blue (RPG)  
Regarded as one of the best RPG's ever and was one of the very last games to come out on the Mega CD.  The game was one of the only one's to utilise the CD fully. 

Silpheed (Shoot em up)  
Looked very impressive at the time and played extremely well.  The games mixes FMV backgrounds with 2d sprites and sound good scaling. 

Sonic CD (Platform) 
Well most people know of this one!  Released to help bring up sales of the Mega CD although it wasn't that impressive.  The game was a bit too easy but the graphics and sound made it stand out from the crowd. 

Eternal Champions CD (Beat em up) 
The follow up to the successful Mega Drive beat em up the added more characters, more moves, background and gameplay to make one of the best fighting games at that time.  

Thunderhawk (3D helicopter sim) 
A great effort made by Core on their behalf and managed to produce a great looking game that played well and got some pretty high scores in the mags. 

Earthworm Jim: Special Edition (Platform) 
An update on the Snes and Mega Drive versions.  This version contains all the great playability of the original and adds slightly better graphics with an extra stage and a remixed soundtrack to go with it. 

Final Fight (Beat em up) 
At the time it was very popular and still is with some people.  Capcom's classic side scrolling fighting game made good use of the Mega CD's capabilities and made it one of the best fighting games on it. 

The Secret Of Monkey Island (Adventure) 
A port of the classic PC original with a good translation which makes use of the CD drive by adding much better sound. 

There are many more of course but this little list here tells us that it wasn't any old crap that was released for the add on.  In fact if you think about it there were better games released for the Mega CD then the  Jaguar, Philips CD-i, Amigia CD32 and 3DO. 

Why Did It Fail To Sell? 

The Mega CD failed for various reasons.  It had so much expectations but couldn't live up to it.  Many people thought it was capable of rendering polygons, displaying more colours etc. but it couldn't.  When all this was realised it was slagged off by the press and many people decided it certainly wasn't worth the price Sega were charging.  At the time almost every programmer never used CD's as storage devices and had no idea how to use the CD medium properly (using extra space for music tracks and FMV along was a bad idea!)  Also it's price didn't justify itself and even though Sega tried their best to support it, it wasn't enough. 

The Mega CD was ahead of it's time and many people chose to stick with their Super Nintendo's and Mega Drives instead.  Again the Neptune was hoped to get full 32 bit power out of Mega CD games but when that was canned all hope was lost for the Mega CD.  Finally after all 3rd Parties abandoned it Sega did too leaving it's buyers utterly disappointed. 
 
-- Written By Matt