47 replies to this topic

[DracIsBack]

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Another aspect of backwards compatibility that is often ignored is the possibility of people ignoring the new capabilities of the hardware. Look at what happened with the 7800. The number of 2600's in homes vastly outnumbered the amount of 7800's in homes, so many companies (even Atari) decided that it was more economical to make 2600 games than 7800 games, since they would have a larger audience. People soon realize that they really don't need a 7800 because the majority of the games are playable on the (cheaper, and more easily available) 2600... thus, the 7800 suffers in the marketplace due to competition with it's own predecessor.

Yeah - that and the fact that Atari responded to NES and SMS competition by futher dividing their resources with the release of the XEGS. Even though the 7800 stood a better chance of competing with the NES and SMS than the 2600 or XEGS, Atari pinned their hopes on the XE and even seemed to deliberately cripple 7800 titles in favour of XEGS ports. Witness Karateka, Summer Games, Crossbow etc.

[JB]

DracIsBack said:

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Another aspect of backwards compatibility that is often ignored is the possibility of people ignoring the new capabilities of the hardware. Look at what happened with the 7800. The number of 2600's in homes vastly outnumbered the amount of 7800's in homes, so many companies (even Atari) decided that it was more economical to make 2600 games than 7800 games, since they would have a larger audience. People soon realize that they really don't need a 7800 because the majority of the games are playable on the (cheaper, and more easily available) 2600... thus, the 7800 suffers in the marketplace due to competition with it's own predecessor.

Yeah - that and the fact that Atari responded to NES and SMS competition by futher dividing their resources with the release of the XEGS. Even though the 7800 stood a better chance of competing with the NES and SMS than the 2600 or XEGS, Atari pinned their hopes on the XE and even seemed to deliberately cripple 7800 titles in favour of XEGS ports. Witness Karateka, Summer Games, Crossbow etc.

As far as the XEGS, they may have been hoping that computer capability would carry it. The NES had no computer capability, and past experience had shown that home computers could hurt dedicated game consoles.

What was really 100% inexcusable was keeping the VCS/2600 in market.
The 7800 played VCS games, there was no need for the VCS, which was already well past it's expiration date, to stay in circulation.

Killing it would've done a lot for the 7800.

[Ze_ro]

JB said:

Killing it would've done a lot for the 7800.

Yeah, but they I probably wouldn't have Secret Quest or Dark Chambers... I love those games

(I guess they probably would have become 7800 or 8-bit games, but whatever)

--Zero

[DracIsBack]

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eah, but they I probably wouldn't have Secret Quest or Dark Chambers... I love those games  

(I guess they probably would have become 7800 or 8-bit games, but whatever

Dark Chambers is on both 7800 and XEGS. The 7800 version is the best of the three, taking advantage of its ability to manipulate many objects without flickering.

I liked Secret Quest too, except for that weird-ass password system. Writing down the symbols was such a pain!

[DracIsBack]

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As far as the XEGS, they may have been hoping that computer capability would carry it.

I understand why they did it - they wanted to get rid of warehouses worth of software/peripherals etc. And they wanted to rebuilt support for the 8-bit computer line. Also, it was cheaper to quickly port disk games for the XE to cartridge than to write new Atari 7800 games.

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The NES had no computer capability, and past experience had shown that home computers could hurt dedicated game consoles.

True. However, computers and consoles didn't mix well. Witness ADAM, Japanese Famicom keyboard, lack of interest in GRADUATE etc.

[Ze_ro]

DracIsBack said:

Dark Chambers is on both 7800 and XEGS. The 7800 version is the best of the three

Oh yeah, I almost forgot that there were other versions of this game... I've played the 7800 version, and I actually didn't like it that much. It ripped off Gauntlet too much, while the 2600 version felt like a different game entirely. My only complaint with the 2600 game is that it was kind of slow. What was the XEGS version like?

--Zero

[DracIsBack]

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Oh yeah, I almost forgot that there were other versions of this game... I've played the 7800 version, and I actually didn't like it that much. It ripped off Gauntlet too much, while the 2600 version felt like a different game entirely. My only complaint with the 2600 game is that it was kind of slow. What was the XEGS version like?

Heh - actually GAUNTLET and DARK CHAMBERS were both derivatives of the APX game, DANDY. DARK CHAMBERS didn't actually rip anything off, though GAUNTLET's popularity makes it seem that way.

The XEGS version is like the 7800 version, but with more flickering. LOL

[Gunstar]

JB said:

Jasoco said:

Which is why I SOOOOO want a Super-8!

Teh 3rd-party adapters don't take advantage of this compatibility.

They basically have a full NES inside the box, and offer poor video out too.

Gunstar said:

DracIsBack said:

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Spec-wise, the 32x is a tad weaker than a Saturn. I would place it about equal to a PlayStation.

???????????????????????????????

almost my thoughts, except I'd have done: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! because i own them all and the FACTS are that the 32X is slightly less powerful than the 3DO and Jaguar, which are both slightly less powerful than the Saturn, which is slightly less powerful than the PSX! BUT, all have some good 3D games on them, which is why i own and like them all.

The Satrun and PS are about equal.
You're forgetting that as far as America is concerned, the Saturn died really early. A lot of the really good stuff only hit Japan.


Most of the PS's really impressive games were later-gen titles.

At the time of it's release, Grandia was hyped as a game that the PS could NEVER do.
Of course, it was ported a few years later, after the Saturn was dead in America and PS programming had advanced to the point where a port was feasable. But initially it was unportable.

Most americans have never seen the later Saturn games, which push the system every bit as hard as late PS games did Sony's baby.

Ok, I'll assume your right, since I haven't gotten any Japanese releases for my Saturn yet. But the REAL FACT of the matter is that the specifications between the 3DO, Jaguar, Saturn and PSX are ALL very close in power, and if the 3DO and Jaguar had lasted longer and gotten proper support from the top development houses, they would have had games of as high a caliber too. I have some unfinished Betas in my posession of both 3DO and Jaguar (JAGCD) games that show them to be capable of much more than the majority of what their libraries show too. VERY much PSX quality stuff.

[JB]

Gunstar said:

Ok, I'll assume your right, since I haven't gotten any Japanese releases for my Saturn yet. But the REAL FACT of the matter is that the specifications between the 3DO, Jaguar, Saturn and PSX are ALL very close in power, and if the 3DO and Jaguar had lasted longer and gotten proper support from the top development houses, they would have had games of as high a caliber too. I have some unfinished Betas in my posession of both 3DO and Jaguar (JAGCD) games that show them to be capable of much more than the majority of what their libraries show too. VERY much PSX quality stuff.

Yah. I can imagine they were capable of some really impressive stuff.

...

If there's one thing VCS games have taught me, it's that no system has ever really been pushed to it's absolute limits, and anyone that claims otherwise is a liar.

[DracIsBack]

[quote]
If there's one thing VCS games have taught me, it's that no system has ever really been pushed to it's absolute limits, and anyone that claims otherwise is a liar. [/quote]

Totally agree. Unfortunately, only the really popular systems get the WOW HOW DID THEY DO THAT programming because they're usually the only ones that programmers are interested enough in to take the time to figure out.

They did it with the
2600 (Solaris, California Games)
NES (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade)
The SMS in Europe (Mortal Kombat series)
The Genesis (Toy Story, Gunstar, Vectorman)
The SNES (Donkey Kong Country series, Killer Instinct)
[/quote]

[Ze_ro]

JB said:

If there's one thing VCS games have taught me, it's that no system has ever really been pushed to it's absolute limits, and anyone that claims otherwise is a liar.

You have to put boundaries on this kind of stuff though... I mean, when you start having to put extra chips in the cartridges like they started doing with the SNES games, then everything gets into kind of a grey area. Claiming that Virtua Racing was the best Genesis game, or that Starfox was the best SNES game is sort of cheating.

You're right though, very few consoles really got pushed to their limits before their demise. The 2600, the SNES, the Genesis, and probably the PSX were the closest. I'm still amazed at some of the homebrew 2600 games out there, especially that new "chronicolor" (sp?) technique that was recently figured out... that just blows my mind.

I forget where I read it (might have been an unreliable source), but someone once said that although a lot of the 3DO stuff looked more impressive than what was on the Jaguar, that the Jaguar actually had more potential that was never really tapped. Had all their power been tapped, the Jaguar would have come out on top. I have some fairly serious doubts that either of them could have really done things as well as the PSX did though. I can believe the Saturn being more powerful than the PSX... it's just too bad that people didn't figure out how to program it as easily.

--Zero

[JB]

Ze_ro said:

JB said:

If there's one thing VCS games have taught me, it's that no system has ever really been pushed to it's absolute limits, and anyone that claims otherwise is a liar.

You have to put boundaries on this kind of stuff though... I mean, when you start having to put extra chips in the cartridges like they started doing with the SNES games, then everything gets into kind of a grey area. Claiming that Virtua Racing was the best Genesis game, or that Starfox was the best SNES game is sort of cheating.

Well, yeah.

To be fair, most of the SNES coprocessors were to get around the fact that the SNES had a rather slow CPU, even with most of the sound work being unloaded onto a sperate processor. Made it hard to squeeze the most out of the AV hardware when your CPU couldn't keep up(hence the "high-res" 512*448 graphics mode was almost never used).

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You're right though, very few consoles really got pushed to their limits before their demise. The 2600, the SNES, the Genesis, and probably the PSX were the closest. I'm still amazed at some of the homebrew 2600 games out there, especially that new "chronicolor" (sp?) technique that was recently figured out... that just blows my mind.

Personally, I'm still amazed at how badly the Genesis sound hardware was used. It's like people just didn't understand how to use an FM synth chip and a PSG at the same time.

And BTW, the z80 on the Genesis was very rarely used, so I don't really think it can be considered pushed to the limits since an entire processor was idle in most of the games.

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I forget where I read it (might have been an unreliable source), but someone once said that although a lot of the 3DO stuff looked more impressive than what was on the Jaguar, that the Jaguar actually had more potential that was never really tapped. Had all their power been tapped, the Jaguar would have come out on top.

Yah. The Jag's a monster.
Unfortunately, complex hardware cones at a price. The upper limit may be higher, but attaining a given quality level is also far more difficult.

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I have some fairly serious doubts that either of them could have really done things as well as the PSX did though. I can believe the Saturn being more powerful than the PSX... it's just too bad that people didn't figure out how to program it as easily.

--Zero

Well, the Saturn was hurt early on because Sega shipped assembly dev kits, and Sony was one of the first companies to ship high-level dev kits(C++, if I recall).

PS games were EASY to hammer out(though they shifted towards assembly later in it's life to milk more out of the system).
Saturn games were far less so, especially given the hardware complexity.


As an interesting sidenote, the tables were turned with the next generation, with the blissfully simple Dreamcast and it's high-level dev kit, VS Sony's PS2 monstrosity and it's assembly dev kit.

[Jasoco]

JB said:

(hence the "high-res" 512*448 graphics mode was almost never used).

Were there any games that DID use that?

[JB]

Jasoco said:

JB said:

(hence the "high-res" 512*448 graphics mode was almost never used).

Were there any games that DID use that?

A few. Just in menus, as far as I know.

The only one I can think of right off is Seiken Densetsu 3(japan-only sequel to Secret of Mana).

[Ze_ro]

I think Killer Instinct actually used that high-res mode for the actual game... I remember it also used some trick in order to get more colors out of the system than people thought was possible too.

--Zero

[JB]

Ze_ro said:

I think Killer Instinct actually used that high-res mode for the actual game... I remember it also used some trick in order to get more colors out of the system than people thought was possible too.

--Zero

I don't think so.
I'm pretty sure it ran in 256*224.

[DracIsBack]

JB said:

Ze_ro said:

I think Killer Instinct actually used that high-res mode for the actual game... I remember it also used some trick in order to get more colors out of the system than people thought was possible too.

--Zero

I don't think so.
I'm pretty sure it ran in 256*224.

IIRC correctly, he is right about it using 512 colours though.

[Gunstar]

Ze_ro said:

I forget where I read it (might have been an unreliable source), but someone once said that although a lot of the 3DO stuff looked more impressive than what was on the Jaguar, that the Jaguar actually had more potential that was never really tapped. Had all their power been tapped, the Jaguar would have come out on top. I have some fairly serious doubts that either of them could have really done things as well as the PSX did though. I can believe the Saturn being more powerful than the PSX... it's just too bad that people didn't figure out how to program it as easily.

--Zero

This is true, the problem with the Jaguar was it's limited cartridge size and lack of great development houses working with it (the 3DO had EA, CrystalDynamics and Core among others, the Jaguar only had ID software-JagDoom makes 3DO Doom look pitiful), which early on kept MOST (not all-look at AvP) Jaguar games looking not quite as good as the 3DO. But with the advent of the JaguarCD, this was no longer and issue, unfortunately Atari died soon after the JaguarCd was released and only a few first-generation JaguarCD games came out, barely giving a glimpse of the possibilities. If you look at unfinished beta's like BlackIce/WhiteNoise on the Jaguar (available from Ambient Distortions, requires Jagcd bypass cart), this shows a game that looks better that most 3DO games, even in it's incomplete state and it looks as good as first generation Saturn and PSX titles, itself being a first gen. Jagcd title. the possibilities were there because if the Jaguar's special proccessors were used in parallel and took full advantage of the 64-bit memory/buss the system had, the 3DO wouldn't have looked as good. But, this also takes top-notch programmers that know how to use a system to it's full potential, and this is simething that the Jaguar had very little of, compared to the other systems, including the 3DO. And just so nobody say, "well what about the N64, it was cart based", yes, it was, but they used special memory chips that required a 150 million dollar manufacturing machine which gave N64 carts the storage capacity approaching cd's. Atari was a small company without resources like this...

[IronMongeR]

JB said:

The SegaCD1 and Genesis 2 physically don't fit each other, so while either system amtes toa  SCD2, only an SCD2 mates to a Gen2.

Funny........I used to have a Mega Drive 2 + Mega CD 1.

Now I have a MD1+MCD1.

[Ze_ro]

DracIsBack said:

JB said:

I'm pretty sure it ran in 256*224.

IIRC correctly, he is right about it using 512 colours though.

I'm probably wrong... the number 512 rang a bell, but I guess it was the number of colors rather than the resolution.

Gunstar said:

MOST (not all-look at AvP) Jaguar games looking not quite as good as the 3DO.

No offense to AvP or anything, it's a great game... but it's really not that technically impressive. I mean, compare it to Doom, and the limitations of the AvP engine are obvious... you can't do elevation differences (luckily, AvP's setting doesn't require it anyways), you're stuck with 90 degree block walls (ala Wolfenstein), and there are only 5 different enemies in the game (marine, predator, alien, face hugger, and alien queen... and if you play as the alien, you'll only see TWO enemies in the game). Not only that, but the game itself is actually rather slow. I don't see anything about this game that couldn't be done on the 3DO. There are much better examples of the Jaguar's power.

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But, this also takes top-notch programmers that know how to use a system to it's full potential, and this is simething that the Jaguar had very little of

Sadly, most companies seemed content to port 16-bit games from the SNES or Genesis. We certainly could have done without games like Double Dragon V and Bubsy.

--Zero

[JB]

IronMongeR said:

JB said:

The SegaCD1 and Genesis 2 physically don't fit each other, so while either system amtes toa  SCD2, only an SCD2 mates to a Gen2.

Funny........I used to have a Mega Drive 2 + Mega CD 1.

Now I have a MD1+MCD1.

Fine.
They aren't SUPPOSED to be dockable, either officially or according to the average user.

There's also supposed to be no way to mix SCD audio and Genesis audio if you manage to mate a Gen2 and SCD1.

[Gunstar]

Ze_ro said:

Gunstar said:

MOST (not all-look at AvP) Jaguar games looking not quite as good as the 3DO.

No offense to AvP or anything, it's a great game... but it's really not that technically impressive. I mean, compare it to Doom, and the limitations of the AvP engine are obvious... you can't do elevation differences (luckily, AvP's setting doesn't require it anyways), you're stuck with 90 degree block walls (ala Wolfenstein), and there are only 5 different enemies in the game (marine, predator, alien, face hugger, and alien queen... and if you play as the alien, you'll only see TWO enemies in the game). Not only that, but the game itself is actually rather slow. I don't see anything about this game that couldn't be done on the 3DO. There are much better examples of the Jaguar's power.


--Zero

I'm not denying that any of what you just said is true, but you've missed the question and answer completely. I wasn't refering to it's speed or the technical prowess of the engine at all. The question was why 3DO games "LOOKED" better than Jaguar games, and AvP "LOOKS" good, with far more colors and a higher texture resolution than any 3DO FPS I've seen (and I own them all); the game that comes closest on the 3DO is SpaceHulk, which, what do you know, has the same limitations of elevation and right angles and speed as does AvP! (which also, buy the way, is a much better version than the Saturn SpaceHulk) Plus, those limitations that you spoke of like limited enemies and such I already addressed when I talked about the limit of the cartridge memory, had the sequal been released on Jagcd as was supposed to happen, it would have had a far better engine, being second generation, and would have had far more memory due to the cd format, an advantage the 3DO and others had. The TRUE speed of the engine can be found in the much faster Alien scenario though, the Marine and Predator scenarios were slowed down so there WAS a difference, since aliens are supposed to be much faster. I'm not saying it couldn't have been done on the 3DO either, but it wasn't. I believe that both machines are quite capable of much more than what was done on either, upto the quality of most first and second generation Saturn/PSX titles, maybe even beyond, although I'm not denying either that the Saturn and PSX are ultimately more powerful (slightly) and that the best of those systems probably would not have been possible on the 3DO and Jag, but comparatively none is overwhelmingly more powerful than any of the others, and with good programming techniques all could have been quite similiar in the game potential that could have been put out on them. None had drastically more or less memory, or polygon power, etc. although the jag was the hardest to get good textures on becuase they had to be programmed instead of having the hardware built-in like the other three; but it could have been done and was as proved in beta demos like BI/WN on the Jag and a few released games like Skyhammer which my Avatar is a screen shot of...

[Rockin' Kat]

IronMongeR said:

JB said:

The SegaCD1 and Genesis 2 physically don't fit each other, so while either system amtes toa  SCD2, only an SCD2 mates to a Gen2.

Funny........I used to have a Mega Drive 2 + Mega CD 1.

Now I have a MD1+MCD1.

I seem to remember seeing a copy of the instructions for the model 1 sega cd.... I think they said to pull a couple of the rubber feet off the model 2 Genesis to make it fit properly on the Model 1 Sega CD.