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Turbo Power

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Sega’s Tower of Power

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Keeping Upgrades Simple

Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time a console manufacturer has created a significant hardware expansion mid-generation. It’s happened several times before, with mixed results. Here are 3 examples of what history has to teach us about console upgrades.The TurboGrafx-16 (called the PC Engine in Japan) was a late-80s Japanese console that beat Sega and Nintendo’s 16-bit models to market. The console was designed to be expandable, with compatibility built into its tiny Core Grafx base that encouraged CD-ROM based expansions, upgraded video output, improved sound, several varieties of RAM expansions, and optional internal storage memory. The console was actually a big hit in Japan.But manufacturer NEC didn’t know when to quit. The company kept creating more and better hardware expansions for the platform, eventually producing a fragmented market. The design culminated in the massive Japan-only SuperGrafx spin-off, which was a colossal failure.Worse, NEC couldn’t duplicate its initial Japanese success when it came to the US. The expensive variety of hardware iterations fragmented the market and added extra cost at a time when the Genesis and SNES promised simpler solutions. While the TG-16 had some spectacular games, poor marketing, high prices, and a market fragmented by expansions and competitors doomed it.Endless expansion on the same core hasn’t worked with consoles. Simpler and more affordable can trump flashier expansions.Sega unwisely repeated NEC’s blunder on the US side by introducing the Sega CD and 32X expansions for the Sega Genesis. The CD add-on promised huge games with impressive sound and cut scenes, but the expansion was prohibitively expensive. The 32X was a Frankensteinian monstrosity, stacking on top of the Genesis cartridge port, but also requiring cross cabling to the back of the Genesis, its own power supply, and awkward RF shielding plates wedged between the external components. Genesis fans and detractors alike dubbed the awkward stacking of expansions The Tower of Power.With four different categories of Genesis games on store shelves, (Genesis, Sega CD, 32X, and 32X + Sega CD titles), Sega fragmented its consumer base. Some 32X games were actually quite good, especially the excellent Virtua Fighter port. But by the time the 32X hit shelves, Sega had already teased its next-gen console, the 32-bit Saturn. Consumers weren’t thrilled at the thought of paying a hefty chunk of cash when they knew something better was on the horizon. The presence of so many expensive products with new hardware on the horizon damaged customer loyalty as consumers found their new 32X expansions abandoned by developers almost as soon as they’d purchased them.Fragmenting the market too many ways is dangerous. Expensive upgrades are a problem. Customer loyalty can be damaged by getting greedy.The N64’s curious half-measure is one of the more successful examples of a video game hardware expansion. The N64 Expansion Pak was a simple, inexpensive plug-in that increased the base RAM of Nintendo’s 64-bit console from 4 to 8 megs. In most games this was used as an enhancement option, providing better resolution or textures. A few games required it, including the excellent Majora’s Mask and most modes in Rare’s popular Goldeneye followup Perfect Dark.The Expansion Pak was easy to understand, plug-and-play, and most importantly, cheap. Any N64 owner could pick one up for less than the cost of many games and significantly upgrade the capabilities of their hardware. The Pak eventually became near-ubiquitous. This stands in stark contrast to the huge, clunky, convoluted, and expensive 64 DD disk expansion for the N64, which Nintendo wisely killed before it could make its way stateside.Around the same time, Nintendo choose to iterate on its venerable Game Boy hardware with the Game Boy Color. Beyond the new color graphics, the GBC also included more powerful core components which allowed it to play much more sophisticated games. But it also very wisely included total backward compatibility with the huge Game Boy library, and the handheld was very inexpensive. Games that worked only on Game Boy Color were clearly color-coded so consumers easily understood the difference.Low cost and simplicity are very important for the success of hardware upgrades.Time will tell if Sony’s grand experiment will work, but hopefully they’re looking carefully at the lessons of the past as they prepare the future of PlayStation.

Jared Petty is a Senior Editor at IGN. He is not thrilled at the prospect of PlayStation NEO. Chat with him about it on Twitter.