Elmofongo: Sega CD already got you covered and it was awesome.
Navagon: Love it or hate it, Sega CD pretty much covered what could be expected from a 16bit CD based console. A second one wouldn't have really expanded on that. Especially given how crap Nintendo's support of that lightgun bazooka thing was.
adaliabooks: If SNES CD had happened the world of (console) gaming as we know it would be vastly different.
Navagon: It's pretty impossible to say how it all would have turned out. Sony only really made the PSX as it was the perfect time for it. Even a year later and it might not have looked like it was worth the effort. The failure of the Saturn and Jaguar would have been apparent (in the Saturn's case it was apparent even before it was released) and the Nintendo 'Ultra' 64 was on the verge of release too.
the jaguar was and still is a failure an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions that buried atari
but the saturn really wasnt that much of a failure it sold 10 million units and even if you stack it up to the 104 million units the ps1 sold the saturn cant really be called a failure 10 million sold is still 10 million sold
it had faithfull arcade conversions of a lot of snk games
of street fighter alpha 1 2 and 3
2D games were unanimously better on the saturn better animation frames were not dropped or cut out better load times more vibrant colors
while sega brought quite a few original and arcade 3d conversions to the table
and it was a huge succes in japan where the system didnt breath its last untill late 2000 and by then sega was bleeding money anyway
what really let the saturn side down was its bizarre architecture with 8 cpu's working in tandem relatively normal now but not in 1994\1998
the surprise launch in 1995 to pre empt the playstation 4 months ahead of time which surprised EVERYBODY fans retailers developers
an extremley weak launch line up that didnt show what the saturn was capable off ( the christmas 95 line up was golden with virtua fighter 2 virtua cop and sega rally )
but above all sega's tendency to launch new hardware hype it to hell and back and then drop it for the next system which made a lot of people wary
from 1991 till 1996 sega released the following
the game gear
the sega cd
the megadrive II
the sega cd II
the sega 32X
and the saturn
it was way too much in al already crowded market in too short a time
and then came the 32X which was released AFTER the saturn launched in japan and despite sega's promises and big words it was killed a year later
even worse sega also decided to kill the megadrive which still had a lot of traction especially in europe in 1996 handing the 16 bit market to nintendo who kept the snes fires going for a while
killing even more good will with their fans
it might have made financial sense but sega soon became known for breaking their word and releasing new systems and then dropping them like a brick
bone headed marketing moves and letting the saturn out high and dry in late 97 and all of 98 didnt help matters much either
sega released all of 3 titles in the west in 1998 house of the dead panzer dragoon saga and burning rangers before making the same mistake all over again
killing the saturn in favor of the new machine
in europe it was the official sega saturn magazine that for the last 18 months of its life actually pushed the saturn and even that was mostly drip feeding and hyping japanese imports
...thanks a lot sega
sega of america and sega of japans infighting also didnt help much
and when kalinske walked and stolar took over well that was pretty much the end
and thats the reason the saturn plummeted like a brick
sega put up a good fight in 95\96 and then in 97 they decided to go fuck it and work on the dreamcast instead
