Notes
The Sega CD had been announced at the Chicago CES on January 1992. Early reports had suggested that hardware in the system would allow it to display more on screen colors (from a larger palette) than the Sega Genesis or the Super Nintendo, which was an important technical concern for consumers. In the end, the Sega CD was unable to convince North American gamers, mostly due to the cost of the console, and the lack of any hardware advancements. Many people felt there was not enough value for the price. Moreover, the game experience was little improved. Players came to have high expectations for the add-on, and Sega even promised that the Sega CD would allow a higher color palette than the Genesis. However, the end result was somewhat lackluster compared to expectations. Graphically, most games ended up looking not much better than normal Sega Mega Drive games, though the sound quality was higher, owing to the CD format of the games.
Sega wanted to showcase the power of the Sega CD, and so focused on "FMV" games rather than taking advantage of the extra storage space of the CD media. Sega insisted on licensing and producing primarily "full motion video" games similar to earlier Laserdisc games, that were universally panned by game reviewers. The limited 64-color palette of the system, combined with the processor not being well-suited for video, did not lend itself well to reproducing video, resulting in grainy video in most games.
Another criticism of the software library was that most titles consisted of Shovelware, in which a developer takes an existing title and adds minor new content (usually a CD audio soundtrack, or video sequences) while not expanding the original game itself. Few titles received major changes, but two exceptions were Earthworm Jim which featured additional levels and game changes, and The Amazing Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin, which featured many changes, which drastically restructured the game, making it less linear, and adding animated cut scenes.
Despite a somewhat lackluster library of games, the console introduced very famous franchises. The Lunar series, which despite the relatively narrow circulation the two titles on the Sega CD received, went on to be critically acclaimed and became a cult classic, with both games receiving remakes for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn in the late 90's; and a prequel to the series for the Nintendo DS in 2005. The English publisher of the two Lunar titles, Working Designs, also published another RPG for the platform, entitled Vay. While it received generally positive reviews, the game did not obtain the same popularity as the Lunar titles. Working Designs also published Popful Mail for the Sega CD. Another notable title was the cult-classic Snatcher, a cyber-punk digital comic released by Konami and designed by Hideo Kojima and the only version of the game released in English.
One exclusive game that was published for the Sega CD is the now famous Sonic the Hedgehog CD, or Sonic CD. Sonic CD is praised for having good graphics, superior CD quality sound to the Genesis/Mega Drive games, and an innovative style of stages, having four versions of each of the three zones in each stage. Many fans praise the game as the best of the series for these reasons. Sonic CD is the most well known non-Sonic Team game at this point.
Entertainment
The entertainment industry has grown and evolved over the years with music and cinema taking a new form through the ages and so have the technologies that fuel it. Gone are the days of eight songs on a cassette and VCR players with merely two hours of entertainment recorded on a single video cassette. With the advent of computers came digital data storage and hence the birth of DVD/CDs.
Quiet a step back in matters of physical form as these new generation audio/video storage devices hold an uncanny resemblance to the records that preceded the cassette generation. DVDs and CDs today are an everyday household entertainment storage device which has come a long way since the first records and cassettes were distributed commercially.
Notable advantages of DVD/CDs have to begin with the amount of storage space available. These days its possible to burn multiple movies on a single DVD and as far as audio goes if its in a highly compressed format such as .mp3 a single CD can accommodate multiple music albums. These discs are easy to handle, light and portable with no moving devices unlike the tape generation however they are delicate and a scratch on the DVD/CD surface could cause a disruption in the information being read by the player.
DVD/CDs were initially invented to provide high quality audio/video data to a user with the ability to regulate its production however this soon fizzled away with daily household computers gaining the ability to burn data in such formats. The race to curb piracy through such means has not hit a roadblock and DVD/CDs keep evolving with newer encryption technologies in a bid to curb unchecked replication of data spawning newer technologies like Blu-ray discs which seems to be yet another milestone on an unending road of innovation.
