Strange/annoying design decisions

[Mootown]

When I owned one, I always thought the Sega Multi-Mega was a bit of an odd one - in principal it's kind of awesome, the console plays Mega CD and Megadrive games as an all-in-one system, great. But then you can also use it as a portable cd player, kind of like a walkman but only if you have 3 batteries that lasted about 2 hours if you were lucky. And you couldn't hop it over to your mates and plug it into their TV unless you had all the cables with you. Which you can do with any console anyway. So essentially, it was a portable console where the only actual portable feature was being able to listen to music CD's, not play games. Which of course I still did anyway. It was bloody heavy to carry around....

[ulala]

the multi mega was a fantastic bit of kit - i love mine!

[snowkatt]

i see the multimega mostly as an all in one unit and an attempt by sega to cut down on all the cables not too mention the space a megadrive with cd unit attached would take up

[DreamcastRIP]

... Sega Multi-Mega... you couldn't hop it over to your mates and plug it into their TV unless you had all the cables with you

I'm mystified as to how that stands up as valid criticism.

How else were you expecting the system to display on a TV other than from needing to use a cable? Through summoning some mysterious spirits or something?

[Mootown]

... Sega Multi-Mega... you couldn't hop it over to your mates and plug it into their TV unless you had all the cables with you

I'm mystified as to how that stands up as valid criticism.

How else were you expecting the system to display on a TV other than from needing to use a cable? Through summoning some mysterious spirits or something?

I just think it's funny - it's no more portable than any console in that respect apart from maybe it's a bit smaller. So the portability feature is being able to play CDs like a Walkman, but it's got crappy battery life and skips at the slightest bump. It's just odd that they enabled it to do that. Remove that 'feature' and maybe it could have been cheaper and sold more, perhaps.

[DreamcastRIP]

... Sega Multi-Mega... you couldn't hop it over to your mates and plug it into their TV unless you had all the cables with you

I'm mystified as to how that stands up as valid criticism.

How else were you expecting the system to display on a TV other than from needing to use a cable? Through summoning some mysterious spirits or something?

I just think it's funny - it's no more portable than any console in that respect apart from maybe it's a bit smaller. So the portability feature is being able to play CDs like a Walkman, but it's got crappy battery life and skips at the slightest bump. It's just odd that they enabled it to do that. Remove that 'feature' and maybe it could have been cheaper and sold more, perhaps.

Yep, I always perceived the device as a portable CD player with built-in Mega Drive and Mega-CD functionality as opposed to a portable combined Mega Drive and Mega-CD that could play music CDs. As you say, the battery life when using it as a portable CD player was a major issue. That said, I didn't have a Discman-type portable CD player back in the day so I don't know how its battery life compared to what else was on the market at the time.

It was perhaps an oddity with limited commercial appeal but that sort of thing was part of what made Sega cool, imho. That they sometimes did things seemingly just because they could rather than playing it safe all the time to satisfy the bean counters. Sure, it didn't work out for them every time but that's life. I liked that willingness to take a risk.

[SJ_Sathanas]

Post Megadrive (and I'm not including 32X or CD) I don't think anything worked out for Sega, commercially atleast.

[snowkatt]

Post Megadrive (and I'm not including 32X or CD) I don't think anything worked out for Sega, commercially atleast.

the dreamcast kind off did
its just that by that time sega had pisses most of its good will and reputation away with gamers and publishers alike
the hype machine of the ps2 didnt help much either
nor did the rampant piracy because they lefr mill cd support in

[rockdjuk]

Cant believe noone has mentioned the PS2 . Quite possibly the ugliest console ever released . can never understand why the smaller bit underneath was on one side rather than being in the middle which is much more symmetrical and easy on the eye .

[Liamh1982]

Any hardware or cartridge where a significant percentage of the internal volume is taken up by empty space - or to put it simply, unnecessarily big casing.
NES carts, I'm looking at you...

[killbot]

Post Megadrive (and I'm not including 32X or CD) I don't think anything worked out for Sega, commercially atleast.

the dreamcast kind off did
its just that by that time sega had pisses most of its good will and reputation away with gamers and publishers alike
the hype machine of the ps2 didnt help much either
nor did the rampant piracy because they lefr mill cd support in

The DC outsold the Saturn despite being on sale for less time. Another company, with the resources to keep subsidising the machine for a little longer, might have kept it going and turned its fortunes around but Sega were in such straits that unless the machine hit the ground running and was an enormous success immediately they were always going to have to drop it and refocus. A shame because it was a nice little machine.

I often wonder if things would have been different if they hadn't ploughed money into developing two different consoles simultaneously. Didn't seem like the kind of thing a company that was haemorrhaging money should have been doing.

[DreamcastRIP]

... Sega were in such straits that unless the machine hit the ground running and was an enormous success immediately they were always going to have to drop it and refocus.

Wrong. The Dreamcast DID hit the ground running. In fact it shattered all previous sales records for a console launch in the Western world. So, yes, its launch was more successful than that of PlayStation, Sega's own past consoles and any past consoles from Atari, Nintendo, et al.

A shame because it was a nice little machine.

How patronising of you!

[killbot]

Wrong. The Dreamcast DID hit the ground running. In fact it shattered all previous sales records for a console launch in the Western world. So, yes, its launch was more successful than that of PlayStation, Sega's own past consoles and any past consoles from Atari, Nintendo, et al.

But that begs the obvious question of why Sega canned the machine after barely a year. I'm not disputing what you're saying, just wondering how come Sega threw in the towel when the machine seemed to be going down so well with both critics and punters?

A shame because it was a nice little machine.

How patronising of you!

It really wasn't meant to be. I own a DC and I like it.

[snowkatt]

because sega was bleeding money
they left mill cd support in which meant punters could just copy games and sell the copies
they console was sold at a razor thin margin ro with a loss and as usual the loss is made up with the sale of software but the sale of software was hampered by piracy

it just cost sega too much money to keep the dc alive and they were bleeding money anyway

[DreamcastRIP]

Wrong. The Dreamcast DID hit the ground running. In fact it shattered all previous sales records for a console launch in the Western world. So, yes, its launch was more successful than that of PlayStation, Sega's own past consoles and any past consoles from Atari, Nintendo, et al.

But that begs the obvious question of why Sega canned the machine after barely a year. I'm not disputing what you're saying, just wondering how come Sega threw in the towel when the machine seemed to be going down so well with both critics and punters?

There were many reasons combined for why Sega exited the console manufacturing business. I certainly have no desire to open that can of worms again because the topic has been discussed ad infinitum on the internet ever since and it usually ends up with hard of thinking people trying to pin it on one reason as if real life is ever that simple. Your comment referred to the console's launch and it was that alone which I addressed in my reply. Besides, this line of discussion is off topic anyway.