| On the 12th of December 1991, Sega released a CDROM-unit called "Mega CD" ("Sega CD" in the USA) to support the dying Mega Drive in Japan. It had another 68000 CPU, additional RAM, a custom graphics processor and a new sound chip which made even more complex games possible. However, the price of the hardware was very high (49800 Yen, approx. 500$), and the first games (Earnest Evans & Sol Feace) definitely weren´t worth this much money. Again, Sega made the mistake to release a new system without a top-selling game. But a few months later, with the release of Game Arts´ fantastic RPG Lunar, the sales increased noticeably and other companies began to develop software for the system. |
| At the end of 1992, the device reached the USA, with a slightly better software line-up (Batman Returns, Sewer Shark etc.) than at the Japanese release. But the system was still far too pricey at the beginning, and only few companies announced games for the system. But fortunately, the Genesis itself was a very strong system at that time in the US (mainly because the SNES was released too late), and so quite a lot of people bought the SCD nevertheless. And this was definitely no mistake, because some of the best RPGs, namely Lunar - The Silver Star and Lunar - Eternal Blue were released for this system exclusively. Another great game is Snatcher by Konami, a very atmospherical cyberpunk graphic adventure. During the years 1991 and 1996, approx. 3 million Sega CD units were sold world-wide, compared to 28,5 million Genesis/Mega Drive units. Now it is up to emulator authors to revive the system for a larger audience... |
