The Sega 32X

The Sega 32X is an interesting piece of gaming hardware. It was designed as an add-on for the Sega Genesis mostly to compete with the Atari Jaguar but also because of fears that the Saturn's release would be delayed. The 32X was really a piece of video game hardware that was in a very awkward price/performance category and awkwardly timed as well. It wasn't as powerful as the upcoming Saturn and though it also wasn't nearly as expensive, it required a Genesis and still had a hefty enough $160 price tag on its own.

While the 32X was not as powerful as the Saturn, it did share the same dual SH-2 architecture. This gave Sega and third party developers a chance to practice for the Saturn so to speak by programming for this dual CPU architecture. I'm not sure how effective that was given that there were relatively few games and few third party developers for the 32X.

The 32X plugged into the cartridge port of the Genesis and could accept 32X games or act as a pass-through for regular Genesis games so you didn't have to remove the 32X. It could also work in conjunction with the Sega CD for 32X enhanced Sega CD games. The 32X unit required its own power supply and an additional umbilical to the Genesis so it definitely made for a clunky looking system, particularly if you also had the Sega CD.

The Sega 32X hardware consisted of the following:

CPU: 2 x SH-2 "SuperH RISC Engines" @ 23 MHz (slightly slower than the 28.6 MHz of the Saturn)
Memory: 256 KB RAM + 256 KB VRAM (the Saturn had 2 MB RAM + 1.5 MB VRAM as well as additional buffers)
Graphics: Custom Sega 32X VDP @ 23 MHz (the Saturn had 2 custom enhanced VDPs)
Sound: QSound PWM @ 23 MHz

As far as games were concerned, there weren't very many. There were a total of 40-45 32X games, many were slightly enhanced Genesis games or otherwise weren't very good because development was rushed to beat the Saturn. However, there are a few good ones to watch out for. Star Wars Arcade, Virtua Fighter and Shadow Squadron are all decent games that take reasonable advantage of the 32X hardware.