For Time Extension, Damien McFerran wrote about The Rise And Fall Of Sega Enterprises. There’s plenty I could have quoted (so that means you should read it the full article) but this part about former SEGA of Japan president Hayao Nakayama wanting a console to take on Atari’s then-forthcoming Jaguar console. That console was the 32X:
[Scot] Bayless feels that Sega was guilty of focusing its attention on entirely the wrong rival. “I think the decision to respond to Jaguar was symptomatic of that pervasive lack of direction that lay below the surface at Sega. Without a clear vision, we were just reacting. There’s an old bit of racing wisdom, ‘What’s behind me doesn’t matter.’ At least at an institutional level, Sega seemed to be living the exact opposite. Strategically, we always seemed to be focusing on what the other guy was doing instead of inventing the future as we saw it.”
In hindsight, targeting Atari instead of their more direct competitors Nintendo, and bigger upcoming rivals Sony, was very silly. The Jaguar tanked harder than Sega’s 32X or Saturn but it was one of many missteps from the company in the 90s as they chased and fell until the very end.
