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NEC TG-16/TE/TurboDuo => TG-16/TE/TurboDuo Discussion => Topic started by: StarDust4Ever on June 11, 2016, 09:11:32 PM
Title: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 11, 2016, 09:11:32 PM
Not trying to sound discriminatory against CDs or against people who only have systems capable of playing Hucards, as I myself collect Hucard only.
I'm going use the Genesis / Megadrive, SegaCD, and 32X as an example. Nobody refers to SegaCD or 32X carts as Genesis or Megadrive games, but each peripheral is treated as it's own system when it comes to collecting. This makes sense to me. Sega fans can collect specifically for whichever sub-system they collect for and when doing trades or sales there is no question as to which game plays on what.
Turbografx / PC Engine doesn't seem to make that distinction as much. It just gets kind of frustrating to read about games or suggestions from various folks and the need to do a Google search to determine it's a SuperCD title after I can't find the title in the No_Intro set on my Everdrive. Further compounding the issue is the packaging at first glance is largely the same, ie jewel cases, and closer inspection is needed to make a determination as to the logo for Hucard or SuperCD.
Maybe I'm just being a gripe by the medium as well as the hardware setups needed to play are very different. I'm kind of old school at heart and long ago determined that cart systems were far more reliable over disc systems. Full disclosure; I don't currently own any 90s CD consoles, although I do have a handful of PS1 games I sometimes play on PS3.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: MNKyDeth on June 11, 2016, 09:28:45 PM
The US games library on HuCard is so small compared to what was released in Japan. Sure there are good games on the HuCards but nearly all the best were on CD. Even then the US releases were so few compared to Japan it made it almost to the point that you needed the CD-Rom to get everything you could out of this console, imo.
Once the Super System 3.0 came out games started pushing the limits of this console and then the Arcade card hit and it upped the ante even further.
My point is, limiting to HuCard only you are seeing a very very small portion of the games and the abilities of this system. I think "we" in general don't separate the HuCards from CD's so much as most people want to explore everything this console has.
This is my 2c on it.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 11, 2016, 09:47:22 PM
I'm not anti-CD by any means, but with the reliability issues with leaky caps and rotten gears, and the high resale prices of system hardware both US and even Japan, it isn't as accessible to many gamers. I cannot afford one right now. Sega CD and especially 32X had smallish libraries compared to Genesis / Megadrive so they are considerably more niche and less desirable.
Still it isn't unreasonable to argue that the base units by themselves always had a larger install base because they came out earlier. In the case of the Genesis, many gamers ignored the CD and 32X addons thus most devs continued releasing straight Genesis carts.
And the Hucard library (counting Japanese entries) is over like 300 titles or so by itself, comparable in size to the US N64 library but with less filler. So I don't believe there isn't a lot to great stuff to collect for as is. Someday I'll get either a Japanese Duo or one of those briefcase setups to complement my stock US Turbografx (don't know why but the bulky modular nature of the briefcase appeals to me), but for now I don't have the money or the space to add one to my collection.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Gypsy on June 12, 2016, 12:16:28 AM
Besides the systems, old cds themselves will have issues if not stored properly. I guess carts do too, but I've encountered way more non-working discs than carts. So there are definitely reliability issues. That said, the library is great. So, emulate if you have to, but there are just so many good games you miss out on by not playing CD games.
As for the topic of the op itself. I did always view Sega CD as a separate system despite the fact that you need a Genesis. Maybe it's because of the duo but I always just kind of viewed all the PCE/Turbo stuff as one library.
Title: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: esteban on June 12, 2016, 01:03:26 AM
Not trying to sound discriminatory against CDs or against people who only have systems capable of playing Hucards, as I myself collect Hucard only.
I'm going use the Genesis / Megadrive, SegaCD, and 32X as an example. Nobody refers to SegaCD or 32X carts as Genesis or Megadrive games, but each peripheral is treated as it's own system when it comes to collecting. This makes sense to me. Sega fans can collect specifically for whichever sub-system they collect for and when doing trades or sales there is no question as to which game plays on what.
Turbografx / PC Engine doesn't seem to make that distinction as much. It just gets kind of frustrating to read about games or suggestions from various folks and the need to do a Google search to determine it's a SuperCD title after I can't find the title in the No_Intro set on my Everdrive. Further compounding the issue is the packaging at first glance is largely the same, ie jewel cases, and closer inspection is needed to make a determination as to the logo for Hucard or SuperCD.
Comrade, all you have to do is take a MOMENT to consult a resource:
Don't worry, you have plenty of time to explore the CD-ROM library of games in the future.
There are TONS of great HuCARD games to enjoy for now.
Obviously, I am not anti-CD...but I appreciate and respect anyone who is able to give the HuCARD titles an opportunity to shine.
While it is true that IT WOULD BE A CRIME TO IGNORE THE CD GAMES (seriously), there is no need to rush into it! Especially if $$$$ is an issue.
HuCARD 4 Eva.
:)
ADVICE: Some folks are going to harass you ("You MUST get CD naowwwwwwwwwwww!!!!") ... Ignore them. Just tell them that OF COURSE YOU WILL PLAY CD GAMES, but later.
Promise this.
Hold true to it.
And the Lourde of Thunder* will bless your game sessions.
* Available as SCD only. Sorry.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Gypsy on June 12, 2016, 01:20:50 AM
Some of my absolute favourites are hucards. Devil Crash, Cadash, Super Star Soldier and Final Soldier. I'm pretty sure Soldier Blade will be on that list once I play it.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: rxmage on June 12, 2016, 01:40:59 AM
I think for a system that had such small market share, NEC did a decent job transitioning to the all in one Duo. I think the Duo helped homogenize HuCARDS and CDs into just Turbo games. Using your example of Sega, they stuck with the Frankenstein mash of parts that was the Genesis/CD/32X that each required its own power adapter and had patch cords going everywhere for too long. While NEC had their period of doing somewhat the same, I think they moved on to an all in one unit sooner. When looking at both systems today, the Duo is much more readily available than the Sega CDX or X'Eye units.
I get the finance side of being able to jump in and get a CD unit just because you want it. But, when you can, I would suggest it. As stated, great games available. Like you, I love the PCE briefcase. That was the direction I wanted to go. But, I was able to obtain a broken dock and broken CD unit for pretty much nothing. Fixed both and so, here I am. As Gypsy stated, emulation is a route to experience CD games...I don't think emulation is the sin that some categorize it into. Emulation made me decide that I wanted the original hardware.
But hell, what do I know...I haven't even had a cup of coffee yet this morning, so I am pretty much babbling on.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: bob on June 12, 2016, 02:09:12 AM
@rx: i am actually surprised the cdx has remained somewhat affordable. you can still get one for under 200 even on the bay. for another system that had pretty small manufacturing run, i would think that thing would be closer to 500 by now. especially considering it marries the genny/CD in such a small footprint.
i paid like 250 for one with a mix of 30 carts and CDs (all loose) just over a year ago. that was an auction, but even some BINs are still pretty reasonable. of course, if you NEED that box, price is closer to 400 for some stupid reason.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: rxmage on June 12, 2016, 02:23:38 AM
Gynt,
There have been so many times I have thought about getting a CDX. Like you said, for everything that it is, it has a nice small foot print. The only thing that has stopped me is that I hear mixed things about it having cap issues. And, from the videos I have seen, it looks like a bear to mess with. I have a model 2 Genesis/CD unit that I need to fix the CD on...need new laser. I have been holding off because the gears in it look suspect and I don't want to throw good money after bad. Might have to pull the trigger on a CDX... would free up a lot of room that that model 2 is taking up.
For $250, sounds like you got a sweet deal on that lot. The one main reason I like the SegaCD is for Popful Mail. Now, if there was an English translation for the Turbo...
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: bob on June 12, 2016, 02:38:21 AM
funny you say that about the caps. i have owned 2 cdx systems over the last 5 years and they have always worked perfect. never had an issue and i never heard of cap problems with them. but you are the second person in like 2 weeks to say that to me. i play it regularly, so maybe that helps?
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: rxmage on June 12, 2016, 03:04:37 AM
funny you say that about the caps. i have owned 2 cdx systems over the last 5 years and they have always worked perfect. never had an issue and i never heard of cap problems with them. but you are the second person in like 2 weeks to say that to me. i play it regularly, so maybe that helps?
I don't know how accurate the purported cap issue is. I have watched GameTech US on some of the repairs he has done on the units and he made mention of it being common. Now that could be just the common repair he does on them...not necessarily a common issue with the units. Someday I will have to pull the trigger on one. But, for now, I think my next acquisition will be a Duo...if I can find one for the right price.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 12, 2016, 03:11:51 AM
Basically you're crazy. The PCE was designed from the beginning to have the CD unit. CD is not some failed add-on when it comes to PCE. If you get confused about which hardware you need to run the game then...stare a little bit longer. All that info is on every game case.
HuCARDs are underrated, I %100 agree but most PCE games are Super CDs.
As for the longevity of CDs, bullshit. Nearly without exception CDs last forever. "Not stored properly" is hardly an issue. Don't leave your CDs in a non-climate controlled shed in Arizona. Don't scratch the things. Beyond that sort only abuse they last forever. Don't confuse "the abuse of slobs" with "sensitive to storage". In 23 years of playing Turbo I've encountered the same number of bad HuCARDs as I have CDs, none.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Gypsy on June 12, 2016, 03:30:46 AM
As for the longevity of CDs, bullshit. Nearly without exception CDs last forever. "Not stored properly" is hardly an issue. Don't leave your CDs in a non-climate controlled shed in Arizona. Don't scratch the things. Beyond that sort only abuse they last forever. Don't confuse "the abuse of slobs" with "sensitive to storage". In 23 years of playing Turbo I've encountered the same number of bad HuCARDs as I have CDs, none.
Fair point. I've never had an issue with a disc I've bought that worked when I bought it. People always seem to bitch about it, but they are likely abusing the discs. I don't think disc rot is a serious issue (outside of LDs, obviously) as I have had a bunch of old discs for a long time and none of them have shown any signs of that.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: elmer on June 12, 2016, 04:03:28 AM
The PCE was designed from the beginning to have the CD unit. CD is not some failed add-on when it comes to PCE.
Yep, that's right. The CD was part of the PCE's initial design.
You can see how very little hardware it actually adds to the system ... just the drive and the ADPCM and some RAM, all addressed by the main PCE CPU.
Nothing on the PCE is actually "replaced" when you add the briefcase to the base PCE.
Compare that to Sega's MegaCD which was never a part of the original Genesis.
It's a horrible kludge, and is basically a totally separate console that does its own game processing on its own internal CPU/RAM/blitter and then shuts down the original Genesis CPU so that the MegaCD can DMA the resulting image to the Genesis's VDC to be displayed.
It's a "clever" solution to getting increased performance out of the awful Genesis design limitations ... but it's an ugly, ugly hack.
The same with the 32x and its nest of wires.
They're both really different machines to the original console, just sold as add-ons rather than new systems.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: esteban on June 12, 2016, 04:14:19 AM
Some of my absolute favourites are hucards. Devil Crash, Cadash, Super Star Soldier and Final Soldier. I'm pretty sure Soldier Blade will be on that list once I play it.
Yes, Soldier Blade will be on the short list.
:)
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Gypsy on June 12, 2016, 04:29:09 AM
Some of my absolute favourites are hucards. Devil Crash, Cadash, Super Star Soldier and Final Soldier. I'm pretty sure Soldier Blade will be on that list once I play it.
Some of my absolute favourites are hucards. Devil Crash, Cadash, Super Star Soldier and Final Soldier. I'm pretty sure Soldier Blade will be on that list once I play it.
Some of my absolute favourites are hucards. Devil Crash, Cadash, Super Star Soldier and Final Soldier. I'm pretty sure Soldier Blade will be on that list once I play it.
Some of my absolute favourites are hucards. Devil Crash, Cadash, Super Star Soldier and Final Soldier. I'm pretty sure Soldier Blade will be on that list once I play it.
Yes, Soldier Blade will be on the short list.
:)
Thanks for the tip. I just fired up Soldier Blade on my Everdrive. Beat Stage 1 boss on my first try, bit ot's got all the action that makes Blazing Lazers so great. Just picked one up off the 'Bay. Can't wait to play through it! :dance:
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: technozombie on June 12, 2016, 03:46:51 PM
For me learning about the games and what they play on is part of the joy. Digging around yahoo.jp and then looking the games up on pcengine.co.uk is both entertaining and educational.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: GoldenWheels on June 13, 2016, 01:30:36 AM
pcengine.co.uk is damn pretty useful, even if just for weeding out all those digital comics/RPGs as you search for a new game...I actually also agree with their "buy it/try it/avoid" ratings, mostly.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Necromancer on June 13, 2016, 03:36:14 AM
The reasons I always think of it as one system:
1) It was meant to have the CD from the beginning and was well supported, not some afterthought brought out years later. 2) The cd is just a storage medium, without additional cpu power, hardware scaling/rotation, etc.; even its save file and av capabilities could be added with other peripherals. Other than redbook and adpcm stuff, any game on cd could've been done on a huey. 3) Maybe it's tough for guys just starting out today, but for the longest time Duos were pretty cheap; it wasn't hard to find one for $150 or less, so why would anyone buy a base system to save less than $100? The whole reliability argument doesn't wash with me either, not when so many systems worked flawlessly for 15-20 years and gear changes, cap jobs, new blazing lazers, etc. were relatively cheap. 4) After years and years of playing the games, reading reviews, etc., I know which format most games are on. It's not something I have to think about or look up very often. 5) The most important reason is that the first system I bought was a TurboDuo. For me,format has always been a non-issue, other than knowing I couldn't play Arcade Card or Games Express games without the corresponding system cards and a region mod.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Gentlegamer on June 13, 2016, 04:38:38 AM
One thing I've learned in my time here and from experiencing the system is that PC Engine was truly the first CD console.
As others have pointed out, CD capability was part of its initial design, the CD-ROM adds no additional hardware capabilities, and a large portion of its library was released only on CD.
If you really want to experience PC Engine, you need to be able to play CD games. The best advice for "authentic/collectard" experience is get a Duo-R. Then use Turbo Everdrive and CD-R to bypass the collectard market on the "softs" (as classic EGM would have put it).
Outside of that, the Ootake emulator is excellent.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 13, 2016, 05:43:20 AM
I had fond memories playing Star Parodier on Wii VC. It would be awesome to play this title again without grabbing for the Wii-motes. Someday I'll get that "briefcase" setup. :wink:
How large were most CD games once you strip out the audio? I think most ripped game images have the CD audio tracks encoded as mp3 which would be no good for burning. I've also heard burned discs needed 650Mb CDR which are hard to find... :-k
I'm also curious about one thing regarding the CD audio: if someone pulled A/V off a Coregrafx unit in a briefcase setup, would they still get the CD audio? It would be kinda fun if one could hack "quadraphonic sound" out of a briefcase setup by tapping the stereo A/V from the Coregrafx and CDDA from the headphone output. :lol:
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 13, 2016, 06:53:25 AM
Yes, the full sound comes back out of the core consoles.
You don't need 650MB disc for PCE games since CDs weren't that big back then.
It's easy to get a feel for how big most stage-based games are by the CD format and number of loads. Most are comparable to SNES/Genesis cart games for the time when you subtract the cinemas, redbook and adpcm. If a 6 stage Super CD game doesn't load for bosses, then it's a <12 meg game. That's not taking into account all of the reused assets and code loaded each time, that wouldn't count separately in a cart game.
A good example is that Spriggan is roughly the same size as Musha.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 13, 2016, 09:17:31 AM
Yes, the full sound comes back out of the core consoles.
You don't need 650MB disc for PCE games since CDs weren't that big back then.
Good to know all the audio comes from the main unit. I think you misunderstood me regarding the CDs. Early CD consoles sometimes needed 650mb/74min CDRs because the lasers had trouble tracking the 702Mb/80min CDs which have grooves spaced closer together. The 650mb/74min CDRs are almost impossible to find anymore...
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 13, 2016, 09:32:42 AM
Yeah, but only some people care. I've had three different CD systems and they always play any CD-R I throw at them.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 13, 2016, 09:43:00 AM
Yes, the full sound comes back out of the core consoles.
You don't need 650MB disc for PCE games since CDs weren't that big back then.
Good to know all the audio comes from the main unit. I think you misunderstood me regarding the CDs. Early CD consoles sometimes needed 650mb/74min CDRs because the lasers had trouble tracking the 702Mb/80min CDs which have grooves spaced closer together. The 650mb/74min CDRs are almost impossible to find anymore...
There's a thread about disc theories and which brands work best. I'm pretty sure that 550MB cdrs exist, but are even harder to find.
99% of it is having a fully functional CD drive. Many people of services to tune and replace the important parts. Otherwise, having a proper disc image is pretty much mandatory.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 13, 2016, 09:49:06 AM
Never heard of 550mb discs. I know 230mb "mini" CDs exist. I used to have a stack of those I burned audio singles to I downloaded from Napster/Roxio. It was the only way I knew to remove the DRM.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: wildfruit on June 13, 2016, 10:24:18 AM
If anyone is having trouble with cd-r and wants to try a 650mb disc I have tons of them left. Taiyo Yuden ones. I'll send one to, let's say, the first three people that want to try one. I doubt it would make a difference though as so many other more important factors to consider. Peace.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: crazydean on June 13, 2016, 12:22:53 PM
There have been so many times I have thought about getting a CDX. Like you said, for everything that it is, it has a nice small foot print. The only thing that has stopped me is that I hear mixed things about it having cap issues. And, from the videos I have seen, it looks like a bear to mess with. I have a model 2 Genesis/CD unit that I need to fix the CD on...need new laser. I have been holding off because the gears in it look suspect and I don't want to throw good money after bad. Might have to pull the trigger on a CDX... would free up a lot of room that that model 2 is taking up.
For $250, sounds like you got a sweet deal on that lot. The one main reason I like the SegaCD is for Popful Mail. Now, if there was an English translation for the Turbo...
I wanted to weigh in real quick on the CDX. I use retroRGB.com a lot because I have an RGB setup, and he has a short video on the CDX audio vs Genesis 1 audio found here: http://retrorgb.com/genesisversions.html
As for CD-Rs, they run just fine on my PCE Duo. I can't tell the difference between a burned game and Mysterious Song.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 13, 2016, 12:57:26 PM
I have a Genesis 1 and yes, the sound did go down hill after that. I never knew how far down the hill until I listened to the CDX clip in that video though. f*ck, it sounds like shit!
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Zero_Gamer on June 13, 2016, 01:37:53 PM
I have a Genesis 1 and yes, the sound did go down hill after that. I never knew how far down the hill until I listened to the CDX clip in that video though. f*ck, it sounds like shit!
Yes, I can attest. I bought a model 1 genny a couple of years ago, and the sound was horrible!
I sold it and bought a model 1 HD, and sound was night and day different.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: rxmage on June 13, 2016, 01:37:54 PM
Christ, that is a huge difference in sound quality...maybe I don't want a CDX after all...
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: bob on June 13, 2016, 01:52:36 PM
wow. i wouldnt even think its the same game. that is crazy.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 13, 2016, 02:11:19 PM
There are way too many sound chip variations inside Genesis hardware and not just one kind per model. But there is a custom amp mod that makes any Genesis/Mega Drive hardware sound great.
Otherwise, you're best off with the earliest Model 1 systems that have the High Definition Graphics monicker.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 13, 2016, 06:07:34 PM
FYI, my Genesis is a VA-7 Model 1. Audio is quite "grungy" through the RF and mono AV out, but crystal clear stereo through the headphone jack set to volume 5. Not bad at all when using a 1/8" phono to RCA for sound. I'm not going out of my way to procure a "High Definition Graphics" unit when what I have is fine, so long as I ignore the multi-out and use the phono jack. People only want the "High Def" versions because they lack the "Licensed by Sega" boot screen. Which was bunk anyway because the protections quickly got defeated.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SamIAm on June 14, 2016, 12:01:30 AM
Either there's some issue exclusive to Sonic 3, or that guy's CDX is messed up, because the difference is normally not even close to being that pronounced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-KsaGBUVz4
That's just one of many you can find.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 14, 2016, 12:41:41 AM
Yes, the full sound comes back out of the core consoles.
I'm wondering how this is possible to get CDDA out of the CPU pins given it's unbuffered. I studied the pinout of the 69-pin connector and I noticed there is a single sound in pin between the left and right sound output. If the mixing is done inside the coregrafx for a/v output (pc engine / turbografx rf modulator is mono by design), then you would only be getting a mono mix from the CDDA with stereo sound channels from the CPU. Since the synth is mostly used for SFX rather than BGM in SuperCD titles, the audio output from the Coregrafx in a briefcase setup would be technically inferior to the audio output from the adjacent CD unit. Unless I'm missing something.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 14, 2016, 12:50:13 AM
I have a Genesis 1 and yes, the sound did go down hill after that. I never knew how far down the hill until I listened to the CDX clip in that video though. f*ck, it sounds like shit!
Yes, I can attest. I bought a model 1 genny a couple of years ago, and the sound was horrible!
I sold it and bought a model 1 HD, and sound was night and day different.
I assume you had a VA-7 revision ike mine. Did you try tapping the headphone connection for stereo? I found it to be quite acceptable at half volume (5).
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 14, 2016, 04:47:03 AM
Someone (Chris?) discovered not too long ago that the sound quality coming out of a CoreGrafx hooked to an IFU wasn't nearly as good as the sound coming out of the IFU.
Stardust: The right HDG Genesis models are sought after because of the sound. TMSS is not nearly as big an issue. Your Genesis might sound fine on its own, just as many people with the worst sounding revisions often don't know the difference until they compare them.
Here's what the guy behind the Mega Amp had to say about the VA7:
Quote
VA7: Sega changed the sound circuit for this motherboard, and let me tell you, it stinks. Bad. It sounds like an emulator's sound quality was set to the lowest possible setting; it's flat, muffled, distorted, and worst of all, there's an annoying hissing sound in the background (static). Unless you can mod your system with a new audio amp, do yourself a favor and stay clear of this revision.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Gypsy on June 14, 2016, 07:14:50 AM
Yeah the VA7 is the only one I'd truly avoid. I have a 6.something currently and it's good enough. I wouldn't mind an HDG Genny, but I'm not going to pay the going rate for one.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: johnnykonami on June 14, 2016, 07:46:59 AM
I'm not sure which Genesis I have, it's a model 2, and it was region modded (Came with my Alien Soldier years ago). I guess I'd have to open it up to find out..
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: ginoscope on June 14, 2016, 08:26:16 AM
There are way too many sound chip variations inside Genesis hardware and not just one kind per model. But there is a custom amp mod that makes any Genesis/Mega Drive hardware sound great.
Otherwise, you're best off with the earliest Model 1 systems that have the High Definition Graphics monicker.
I had two genesis 3 laying around sounding like crap. I got one of these amps that Black Tiger speaks of and wow did it improve the sound. Much better separation and some decent bass. I was honestly really shocked how much of a difference it did make.
Genesis 3 gets no love but it's pretty nice if you just want to play Genesis games and it has such a small footprint.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Bonknuts on June 14, 2016, 10:59:30 AM
Yes, the full sound comes back out of the core consoles.
I'm wondering how this is possible to get CDDA out of the CPU pins given it's unbuffered. I studied the pinout of the 69-pin connector and I noticed there is a single sound in pin between the left and right sound output. If the mixing is done inside the coregrafx for a/v output (pc engine / turbografx rf modulator is mono by design), then you would only be getting a mono mix from the CDDA with stereo sound channels from the CPU. Since the synth is mostly used for SFX rather than BGM in SuperCD titles, the audio output from the Coregrafx in a briefcase setup would be technically inferior to the audio output from the adjacent CD unit. Unless I'm missing something.
Correct. When attaching a CD unit to a PCE console, the CDDA will be passed to the core unit as mono and mixed in. But unless you're using RF for some reason, use the audio that's coming out of the CD attachment; that will be both stereo chip from the system and stereo CDDA - all mixed together for glorious stereo out (no mono anything).
Also, about your original post - that's a very Sega centric point of view. They kept their addons as addons. The PC Engine was made for the CD unit which was in development at the time of the original console (before its release date). It's the only console in which the alternate medium (for which CDs to this system really are just that), replaced the original hucard medium complete. 1991 was the official flag ship for the new PC Engine.. Duo. No other console in gaming history has this unique story, so people outside the PCE community have a hard time adjusting whatever game manufacture centric views to that of the PCE. That would be your problem, not ours.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 14, 2016, 11:44:01 AM
That's a good point. I didn't consider that there was a time when ONLY Duos were for sale, at least I'm pretty sure that by 1993 they weren't making any HuCARD-only systems. That sorta cements the theory. It would be like if the 32X was a hit and the Neptune became the only Genesis system for sale. Of course, Sega of the 90s being what they were, even if the 32X was a hit they'd figure out some excuse to continue manufacturing multiple unprofitable machines.
Btw, nobody has mentioned the HE System logo and how it's used to describe all PCE soft and hardware under the same blanket...obviously only on the JP side.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 14, 2016, 12:28:26 PM
That's a good point. I didn't consider that there was a time when ONLY Duos were for sale, at least I'm pretty sure that by 1993 they weren't making any HuCARD-only systems. That sorta cements the theory. It would be like if the 32X was a hit and the Neptune became the only Genesis system for sale. Of course, Sega of the 90s being what they were, even if the 32X was a hit they'd figure out some excuse to continue manufacturing multiple unprofitable machines.
Btw, nobody has mentioned the HE System logo and how it's used to describe all PCE soft and hardware under the same blanket...obviously only on the JP side.
HE on every Hucard and CDROM, just like the rectangle Turbografx logo on all the US games.
Part of the issue for me at least, is the fact that price is a significant hurdle to getting in on the Turbografx scene. On the cheap end of things, a person could have access to the entire Hucard library on real hardware for $160 or so. A Coregrafx, an Everdrive, a Genesis Model 1 or equivalent 9-10V DC negative tip barrel adapter, a hacked MIDI-to-RCA cable, and any miniDIN PCe or Duo controller.
Getting access to SuperCD games is at least twice the hardware cost and barrier to entry, possibly more. Then there's multiple regions of hardware to deal with, multiple system cards, and addons galore. Doesn't help that most competing CD systems of the time were just full of a bunch of FMV crap with 240p video that doesn't date well. That and the Atari Jaguar plus the CDROM attachment was almost as big a commercial flop as the Nintendo Virtual Boy.
I am starting to get people's points though on the hardware side of things. PCe/Turbo had a wonderfully designed expansion port with almost everything one could possibly need access to, while Sega just cludged together addons like hardware with bad tumors. I have seen the "Sega Tower" pics with a Sega CD unit at the bottom with a Genesis on top with a 32X on top with a Game Genie or Knuckles followed by a power base topped off with an SMS cart. Sega pretty much killed their own market with the addon tech, then released the Saturn followed by the Dreamcast with barely two years interim between each system.
Still there's a huge variety of hardware for PCe/Turbo, but still a Japanese Duo or Briefcase plus a Turbografx base model will let you play almost everything. Or a Supergrafx paired with a region-modded Duo will truly allow access to the complete library. I've got the db Electronics PC Henshin region converter that lets me play Japanese Hucards on my TG-16, but the cost of upgrading my Turbografx to play CDs would be astronomical. That and I still have a soft spot for cartridge based systems. Always will...
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Bonknuts on June 14, 2016, 12:51:50 PM
Still there's a huge variety of hardware for PCe/Turbo, but still a Japanese Duo or Briefcase plus a Turbografx base model will let you play almost everything. Or a Supergrafx paired with a region-modded Duo will truly allow access to the complete library. I've got the db Electronics PC Henshin region converter that lets me play Japanese Hucards on my TG-16, but the cost of upgrading my Turbografx to play CDs would be astronomical. That and I still have a soft spot for cartridge based systems. Always will...
Get a Duo (whatever model) and be done with it. That was ALWAYS the smartest option. There might be lots different configurations, but in the end a Duo unit is the best, simplest, and cheapest route. Building a PCE+briefcase or TG+CD, or SGX+SCD (which you didn't mention), are possibilities - but they aren't the norm. For some people, it's all about flavor.
If you have PC-Engine or related Core Grafx unit, don't get a briefcase model unless you're into that look specifically (first gen CD units have their issues with CD-Rs). Get a SuperCDROM^2 addon. They have a built in system card already (3.0). They play CD-Rs all day long. And.. they cost (last I checked) less than a Duo unit. But starting out with hucards only and then upgrading to CD games later, as a gamer nowadays, is always going to cost you more in the long run. A lot of retro gamers have seemed to regret this step.
Those of us who were there when the system started out and then transitioned over to the Duo, saw first hand how CD games replaced all hucard games. It was extremely evident. And we continued to play PCE game, now CD, until the softs stop coming out. So to us old timers, it's ALL the same. Just like PC games... you got floppy disk games, CD games, etc all back in the day.. but they were all PC games. Anyway, point is - is that people who didn't experience the PCE systems BITD, don't have the experience and concept of how all this played out. The SegaCD was very popular outside of Japan (even if you didn't own it), so people looked at the TG/PCE CD games in much the same light, when they couldn't have been more different.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 14, 2016, 01:06:03 PM
That's a good point. I didn't consider that there was a time when ONLY Duos were for sale, at least I'm pretty sure that by 1993 they weren't making any HuCARD-only systems. That sorta cements the theory. It would be like if the 32X was a hit and the Neptune became the only Genesis system for sale. Of course, Sega of the 90s being what they were, even if the 32X was a hit they'd figure out some excuse to continue manufacturing multiple unprofitable machines.
Btw, nobody has mentioned the HE System logo and how it's used to describe all PCE soft and hardware under the same blanket...obviously only on the JP side.
HE on every Hucard and CDROM, just like the rectangle Turbografx logo on all the US games.
Part of the issue for me at least, is the fact that price is a significant hurdle to getting in on the Turbografx scene. On the cheap end of things, a person could have access to the entire Hucard library on real hardware for $160 or so. A Coregrafx, an Everdrive, a Genesis Model 1 or equivalent 9-10V DC negative tip barrel adapter, a hacked MIDI-to-RCA cable, and any miniDIN PCe or Duo controller.
What old stuff costs to collectors today doesn't determine what "counts" as part of the library. Around the launch of the SNES, you could buy a new Turbo CD + new TG-16 with games for about the same price as a new SNES.
Quote
Getting access to SuperCD games is at least twice the hardware cost and barrier to entry, possibly more. Then there's multiple regions of hardware to deal with, multiple system cards, and addons galore. Doesn't help that most competing CD systems of the time were just full of a bunch of FMV crap with 240p video that doesn't date well. That and the Atari Jaguar plus the CDROM attachment was almost as big a commercial flop as the Nintendo Virtual Boy.
When they introduced the CD-ROM, before the launch of the PC Engine, and for a while after the first PCE CD games became available, there were no competing CD systems. The Sega-CD was the only competing CD system and it wasn't full of fmv games (<18%(?) of the library could be labeled "fmv", even if that's still misleading). Crap or otherwise, none of the fmv was 240p, more like 64p - 128p. The Turbo/PCE has fewer regions than competing consoles, fewer game formats than the Genesis world and you can play all of the roms on a flashcard, unlike SNES, which needs all of those different chips.
Quote
I am starting to get people's points though on the hardware side of things. PCe/Turbo had a wonderfully designed expansion port with almost everything one could possibly need access to, while Sega just cludged together addons like hardware with bad tumors. I have seen the "Sega Tower" pics with a Sega CD unit at the bottom with a Genesis on top with a 32X on top with a Game Genie or Knuckles followed by a power base topped off with an SMS cart. Sega pretty much killed their own market with the addon tech, then released the Saturn followed by the Dreamcast with barely two years interim between each system.
Still there's a huge variety of hardware for PCe/Turbo, but still a Japanese Duo or Briefcase plus a Turbografx base model will let you play almost everything. Or a Supergrafx paired with a region-modded Duo will truly allow access to the complete library. I've got the db Electronics PC Henshin region converter that lets me play Japanese Hucards on my TG-16, but the cost of upgrading my Turbografx to play CDs would be astronomical. That and I still have a soft spot for cartridge based systems. Always will...
A SuperGrafx + Duo still won't play ACDs or LD2s.
The cost of adding an overpriced collectible to another overpriced collectible is irrelevant when you can buy an all-in-one for less than one and sometimes less than the other can be sold for. Or when superior versions of each are a fraction of the price. It's like saying that it's not worth getting your 32X working, because Wondermegas cost too much.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 14, 2016, 01:51:33 PM
There are a few crazy ideas here I'd like to completely shitcan, if possible.
1) the idea that CDs and cards are different SYSTEMS because CDROM2 gear is expensive is nuts. Even if there were no functional surviving CDROM2s on the planet they would still be the same systems. You're confusing narcissism with technology. The Phantom Menace is still a Star Wars movie even if it's terrible and you're a SW fan. You're just going to have to reconcile that. Deciding those things is the privilege of the creator. Not you. You could have never have been born and "PC Engine" would still decribe both cards and CDs. The universe is a cold and unforgiving place. I'm sorry for you and for all of us.
2) to my knowledge there is no known relationship between the ability to play CDRs and which CDROM2 system you have. I've played CDRs in everything from a IFU30 set to a Laseractive. There are a lot of theories flying around here about CDRs and PCEs and a lot of them are more Fox News when what we need is more like NASA. Fewer hunches and more facts are needed and the fact is that, if in good condition, any model of PCE can play CDRs. If yours doesn't that doesn't change anything, see item 1.
There was a time when I would lead people away from the early CDROM2 because they were failing middle gears like mad and many were dead for other reasons. These days they can be repaired by a number of people and spare parts are easy to get. Because of this I can't think of any reason to talk people out of briefcase units or TG-CDs (other than that the TG-16+CD is honestly really bad looking from a design perspective and way too big). You're going to need to turn some pots or recap something or at least install a new controller port in almost any PCE system, if not then the guy you bought it from probably did.
3) harder to articulate...this drive to identify the cheapest way to play the largest variety of software, talk about it constantly, and poke holes in any other ways of doing it...(i.e.: just get a flash card, just get a flash card, I have a flash card, it's awesome. Buy one. Legit copies are for dummies. Just get a flash card)...it sorta misses the point. Maybe your system can play 250 games, maybe it can play 800 games. It doesn't matter because very few people who own or who have ever owned a PCE system will beat more than like...32 games, maybe. The other 800 will remain unplayed or maybe played for 8 seconds when you're channel flipping on your PCE or an emulator. Don't worry about SuperGrafx or Arcade Card. Having %100 compatibility isn't going to make Air Zonk any more fun. If you like Sapphire a lot then by all means buy an Arcade Card, but don't buy a SGX because it can play the five games your CoreGrafx can't. There are at least 25 PCE games that are better than any SGX game. The SGX sucks. Unless you like those five games you're wasting your time and money (and space). If you like the SGX, that's cool too, but it being the right or wrong choice fiscally or because it increases your PCE compatibility should be beside the point.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: esteban on June 14, 2016, 02:14:54 PM
Clarification: the TG-16 + TG-CD is a more cohesive and superior design to the PCE + IFU design.
SUCK ON THAT, Zeta. :)
Seriously. TG-CD is a streamlined, magnificent beast.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Gredler on June 14, 2016, 02:31:37 PM
Clarification: the TG-16 + TG-CD is a more cohesive and superior design to the PCE + IFU design.
SUCK ON THAT, Zeta. :)
Seriously. TG-CD is a streamlined, magnificent beast.
IFU Stands for "Is f*cking Ugly"
Amirite?!
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: wiseau on June 14, 2016, 02:34:16 PM
I too like the giant toilet that hooks up to the back of my turbo grafx, now if only i could find one that's not 400+, and doesn't already come with a turbo grafx, and has a working save...
Come to think of it, what DOES the turbo Booster/CD use to save games?
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 14, 2016, 03:06:34 PM
Clarification: the TG-16 + TG-CD is a more cohesive and superior design to the PCE + IFU design.
SUCK ON THAT, Zeta. :)
Seriously. TG-CD is a streamlined, magnificent beast.
I agree. The TG setup is a sexy beast. It reminds me of a Klingon warship lol
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SamIAm on June 14, 2016, 03:33:07 PM
Maybe I'm just being a simpleton, but I can't think of these as one monolithic console.
I mean, from a hardware-designer's perspective, OK. From a programmer's perspective, sure. From a modern collector's perspective ... well, maybe. Hudson's marketing tried to steer everyone toward thinking of them as one system, too.
However, from a user's perspective, especially from the period and especially in Japan, no way.
Users don't really care what's going on under the hood, and smart users don't care about labels. They care how much things cost, and they care what their hardware can do.
I don't think you could tell PC Engine users with a straight face that the CD systems, which until their twilight years were fantastically more expensive than base Hucard systems, were nothing but minor upgrades or missing puzzle-pieces that they had to have in order to say that they had a complete PC Engine. In both major regions, far more people owned systems that could only play Hucards than could somehow play CDs. Did this majority somehow only have half the console?
Furthermore, the base Hucard system as a practical matter couldn't do any of the fancypants voice/cutscene/redbook things that almost singlehandledly sold CD games. It's not some tiny sound upgrade. Let's be honest: CD games, by and large, were not possible on Hucards.
I guess it comes down to how you define a "console" and "console games". To me, there's a certain uniformity to the idea, or a certain standardization, and anything that causes one guy to be able to play a game and another guy to not be able to play a game violates that whole concept. By definition, it becomes necessary to say that these guys have two different consoles.
In the same vein, I don't think of the Famicom Disk System as being the same as the Famicom, either - although the line blurs just a little because of the way FDS games became producible as-is on cartridges. I also am not really impressed that the PCE-CD outlived the base system. Even if the 32X had caught on and outlived the Genesis, I'd still think of them as separate if closely related systems.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 14, 2016, 04:16:24 PM
Maybe I'm just being a simpleton, but I can't think of these as one monolithic console.
I mean, from a hardware-designer's perspective, OK. From a programmer's perspective, sure. From a modern collector's perspective ... well, maybe. Hudson's marketing tried to steer everyone toward thinking of them as one system, too.
However, from a user's perspective, especially from the period and especially in Japan, no way.
Users don't really care what's going on under the hood, and smart users don't care about labels. They care how much things cost, and they care what their hardware can do.
I don't think you could tell PC Engine users with a straight face that the CD systems, which until their twilight years were fantastically more expensive than base Hucard systems, were nothing but minor upgrades or missing puzzle-pieces that they had to have in order to say that they had a complete PC Engine. In both major regions, far more people owned systems that could only play Hucards than could somehow play CDs. Did this majority somehow only have half the console?
Furthermore, the base Hucard system as a practical matter couldn't do any of the fancypants voice/cutscene/redbook things that almost singlehandledly sold CD games. It's not some tiny sound upgrade. Let's be honest: CD games, by and large, were not possible on Hucards.
I guess it comes down to how you define a "console" and "console games". To me, there's a certain uniformity to the idea, or a certain standardization, and anything that causes one guy to be able to play a game and another guy to not be able to play a game violates that whole concept. By definition, it becomes necessary to say that these guys have two different consoles.
In the same vein, I don't think of the Famicom Disk System as being the same as the Famicom, either - although the line blurs just a little because of the way FDS games became producible as-is on cartridges. I also am not really impressed that the PCE-CD outlived the base system. Even if the 32X had caught on and outlived the Genesis, I'd still think of them as separate if closely related systems.
I like the way you think. :clap:
The very fact that certain users are excluded from playing games based on their unique hardware setups either becuse they cannot afford or do not want to purchase the required hardware, speaks volumes. There is a reason why the base consoles are 2 or 3 times less expensive than the CDROM units. It is because as you said, the CDROM units were like $200-$300 bitd when they came out, in addition to the base models. Sure some of them broke down over the years, but suffice to say that more users were stuck with the base model hardware. Why else did they continue to release Hucard games for the small but dedicated fanbase that refused to adopt the CDROM even into 1994?
Where is NEC now? It's not like I can just go out to Babbages or K&B Toys and buy a NIB Duo because I want access to the SuperCDROM library. The lower availability of CDROM units dictates that fewer gamers will have access to the disc games than the card games. One could even go further to argue that the 5 Supergrafx games discriminate against non-supergrafx owning customers. Likewise the disc game library discriminates against Hucard only users. The SuperCD System3 and Arcade System games discriminate against owners who only have a system2 card.
PCe >< TG16 thanks to the pinouts. I would even argue the PCe library is less discriminatory than the TG16 because the Hucard ROMs don't check the system region. Hudson/NEC could have easily plugged that loophole by adding a region check code to Hucard games to prevent them booting on US hardware. Nintendo started enforcing PAL/NTSC software lockout once piggyback adapters surfaced. Glad Hudson/NEC didn't go that route.
Basically the PC Engine / Turbografx is like an onion. You got layers, and each new layer requires more hardware to gain access to ever-exclusive clubs. So I'm a level one, actually level two with either the pin adapter, mod, or everdrive allowing me to bypass region lock. 1a = PC Engine; 1b = TG-16. Level 2 = both region hucards. Level 3a, 4, and 5 are the CD systems, ending with Arcade. Level 3b is the Supergrafx. Don't let the smallish number fool you. That club is super exclusive.
So I've worked up the rank from 1b to 2. Yay! And I happily accept my position for the time being. But if we define games by the hardware necessary to play them, no, they are not equivalent.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Punch on June 14, 2016, 07:15:16 PM
Rank 4 forever and ever
edit: supergrafx is such an oddity and different from the usual NEC tree that it really should be considered something like "Rank 三" lol.
PC-FX is rank Welcome to Pia Carrot.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 15, 2016, 01:06:33 AM
PC-FX isn't a PC Engine though, just another system to collect for. Is it backwards compatible with SuperCD games? Didn't think so. I guess it's like comparing the SegaCD to a Saturn. I really need to stop comparing NEC/Hudson to Sega... [-X
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: deubeul on June 15, 2016, 01:14:34 AM
1a = PC Engine; 1b = TG-16. Level 2 = both region hucards. Level 3a, 4, and 5 are the CD systems, ending with Arcade. Level 3b is the Supergrafx. Don't let the smallish number fool you. That club is super exclusive.
So I've worked up the rank from 1b to 2. Yay! And I happily accept my position for the time being. But if we define games by the hardware necessary to play them, no, they are not equivalent.
So What's your point on Geny and MD? SF, SNES and Super Nintendo? Not the same systems?
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 15, 2016, 01:35:12 AM
1a = PC Engine; 1b = TG-16. Level 2 = both region hucards. Level 3a, 4, and 5 are the CD systems, ending with Arcade. Level 3b is the Supergrafx. Don't let the smallish number fool you. That club is super exclusive.
So I've worked up the rank from 1b to 2. Yay! And I happily accept my position for the time being. But if we define games by the hardware necessary to play them, no, they are not equivalent.
So What's your point on Geny and MD? SF, SNES and Super Nintendo? Not the same systems?
Super NES / Super Famicom and Genesis / Megadrive (not counting PAL regions) are practically the same system from a hardware perspective as well as interface. Region modding to play Japanese region games on an American SNES or Genesis is extremely easy. Nice of Sega to put eaily accessible jumpers on the Genesis/Megadrive motherboards that you can wire to a toggle switch. Use a Genie for passthrough if the Japanese carts don't fit the slot; no need to butcher the cartridge port. You don't even need to use codes if you install the region switch. For North American SNES, it's simply cutting off a piece of plastic. A trained monkey could do that.
Turbo / PCe are more involved. I compare the Turbografx / PCe moreso to the NES / Famicom in that you need an adapter to switch regions. Physically they are the same just different pinouts. PC Henshin got me covered. I'm glad that none of the existing PC Engine Hucards check the console region. NEC/Hudson could have easily added region checks to later Hucard releases if they really wanted to. I think they realised imports were lucrative and only helped them financially, hence none of the CDROM titles perform any sort of region check on either system. They certainly could have programmed that in if they wanted to.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 15, 2016, 02:14:56 AM
You guys are nuts. "Discrimination"? Defining a console by how easy it is to mod? These are all totally irrelevant external labels.
If it says "PC ENGINE" on it it's a PC ENGINE. It doesn't get any more complicated than that.
If two people have a new computer but one lives in BFE and can't get cable internet and therefore can't play WoW he does not have a different system than the guy who lives in WoW thanks to Berkley fiber.
An audio compact disc with a video tacked on the end is still an audio compact disc. It still plays in my car and still has the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo on it.
You guys have a D&D Players Handbook level maze of ideological bullshit used to hyper segment and categorize a bunch of shit that's all the same shit.
A few other details:
There is no sales proof that I know of that proves that PCE was all that "segregated". By 1994 it's quite likely that anyone without a CDROM2 had abandoned PCE for SFC at that point. The SFC tanked PCE pretty hard, and basically EVERYONE had a SFC in Japan...and a SFC cost less than a CDROM2 system. The ones buying PCE in 1994 were the hardcore fringe. The days of R Type or Super Star Solider were long gone. The occasional thing like Bomberman 94 was just them being nice, hoping to sell as many copies as possible. I don't think there were a lot of HuCARD only PCE fans by then, all those HuCARD only systems were probably just collecting dust after 1992.
Secondly, by and large what CD-ROM games offered back then WAS in fact doable on a HuCARD. ROM size and CD audio were the only additions and while these things are terrific, they are usually unrelated to gameplay. If you load up Gate of Thunder and turn the sound down while playing through the 1st level, all of that could be done on a HuCARD. The CD doesn't add color. It doesn't make sprites bigger. It doesn't speed anything up (the opposite...). It's main achievement is being able to hold more stuff than any affordable HuCARD could but a giant ass Dracula X HuCARD is totally possible and only the audio would suffer.
In practical terms the PCE became a different system by this point by virtue of the fact that it became a proto-PC-FX, switching almost totally to menu based otaku bullshit. In technical terms though, it's all the same. An N64 with a ram cartridge in it is still an N64. A Honda Civic with a turbo on it is still a Honda Civic. Chocolate milk is still milk.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: deubeul on June 15, 2016, 02:23:30 AM
Super NES / Super Famicom and Genesis / Megadrive (not counting PAL regions) are practically the same system from a hardware perspective as well as interface. Region modding to play Japanese region games on an American SNES or Genesis is extremely easy. Nice of Sega to put eaily accessible jumpers on the Genesis/Megadrive motherboards that you can wire to a toggle switch. Use a Genie for passthrough if the Japanese carts don't fit the slot; no need to butcher the cartridge port. You don't even need to use codes if you install the region switch. For North American SNES, it's simply cutting off a piece of plastic. A trained monkey could do that.
Yep, you're right, region mod on MD or SNES is far easier, but it still can be done on TG/PCE for next to nothing.
As already better said earlier in the thread, it's a matter of perspective.
When you grew up with cards and one day add the CD library, it was all natural, it still had the same flavor.
When I finally had a Duo, it was still the same feel I had all those years with my GT, that exotic, japanese ambiance/gameplay, that excitement I didn't find on other consoles.
When I talk or think about Hucards, Super Hucards, Turbochips, CDs, SCDs or ACCDs, I always say "PC Engine".
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 15, 2016, 02:30:34 AM
PC-FX isn't a PC Engine though, just another system to collect for. Is it backwards compatible with SuperCD games? Didn't think so. I guess it's like comparing the SegaCD to a Saturn. I really need to stop comparing NEC/Hudson to Sega... [-X
The PC-FX is the PC Engine equivalent of the 32X. It has the SuperGrafx hardware inside of it and mixes layers and sounds of PCE aesthetics with original 32-bit quality elements.
You can even play the ripped chiptunes on PCE hardware.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SamIAm on June 15, 2016, 02:33:00 AM
If you're a Japanese guy in 1992, and you've got a Mega Drive and a Core Grafx, I just don't see why buying a Mega CD means buying an add-on/expansion that people should classify as practically its own system with its own library while buying a Super CD means making your PC Engine whole and gaining access to its complete library.
It ain't the price - both are a shade under 50,000 yen. Is it that the Mega CD has a couple extra chips and now it can scale stuff? Is it because Sega is advertising the Mega CD as some kind of "next-level" thing and put the games in a separate kind of packaging? Is it because you read an article that said the PCE was designed with a CD system in mind?
None of those things would really make a difference to me on the user end. I would be much more concerned that both options cost much more than their base systems (or a Super Famicom, if I didn't have one yet), and that both options would allow the base systems to play games that they never could on their own. To me, they would seem like add-ons that effectively function as separate consoles, and both have separate libraries.
At the very least, I think you have to say that if the PCE and PCE-CD are the same, then so are the Mega Drive and Mega CD.
By the way, the base PC Engine's first retail price in 1987 was 24,800 yen (from which it did not drop much), and the CD-ROM unit with IFU briefcase was 57,300 yen. The Duo, when it first went on sale in September 1991, was 59,800 yen. The Duo-R in March 1993 was something just under 40,000 yen. The Super System Card 3.0 was 9,800 yen.
How the different system cards fit in is a whole other can of worms.
Secondly, by and large what CD-ROM games offered back then WAS in fact doable on a HuCARD. ROM size and CD audio were the only additions and while these things are terrific, they are usually unrelated to gameplay. If you load up Gate of Thunder and turn the sound down while playing through the 1st level, all of that could be done on a HuCARD. The CD doesn't add color. It doesn't make sprites bigger. It doesn't speed anything up (the opposite...). It's main achievement is being able to hold more stuff than any affordable HuCARD could but a giant ass Dracula X HuCARD is totally possible and only the audio would suffer.
Why didn't they release Gate of Thunder on a Hucard, then? Could it be that maybe the CD music was considered a critical feature of the game?
Could it be that whether or not Rondo of Blood could work on a giant Hucard doesn't even matter because a Hucard that big had a 0% chance of existing?
Needless to say, I don't buy your reasoning at all. It's completely stuck in the hypothetical. That you could get the first stage of GOT running on a Hucard is little more than an interesting factoid.
Quote
An N64 with a ram cartridge in it is still an N64.
And every game that needed a RAM cartridge came with one, so everyone who owned a plain N64 could play it.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 15, 2016, 02:49:15 AM
I consider Sega/Mega-CD games part of the Genesis/MD library, just as I count Neo Geo CD games as part of the Neo Geo library. I also count all of those SNES games with a couple extra chips inside and Sattelaview games. I also count Mega Modem and Sega Channel games as real. Same with FDS games.
There are some variants that I think can stand alone as an independent library as well as being part of the larger library it's based off of, like 32X, Mega LD, etc.
It seems ridiculous to me to argue that 32X CD games are a unique console library and platform, separate from the 32X cart console library and platfirm, Mega-CD console library platform and Mega Drive cart console library platform.
Even though the Duo replaced the Core hardware with the launch of the Super CD format and no 32X cart consoles or 32X CD consoles were ever released.
The problem with discussions like this is that a majority of game world fans inherit ideas from mags, youtube and the group mentality. They assume that everything is done the same way and reverse engineer their logic from absolutrs they've been told. That's why the PC Engine has to be the "NEC" system, "cause Nintendo. It's an 8-bit generation system, cause that how generations work, you count the bits rattling around inside the cpu. "Everyone knows that..."
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 15, 2016, 03:10:18 AM
If you're a Japanese guy in 1992, and you've got a Mega Drive and a Core Grafx, I just don't see why buying a Mega CD means buying an add-on/expansion that people should classify as practically its own system with its own library while buying a Super CD means making your PC Engine whole and gaining access to its complete library.
It ain't the price - both are a shade under 50,000 yen. Is it that the Mega CD has a couple extra chips and now it can scale stuff? Is it because Sega is advertising the Mega CD as some kind of "next-level" thing and put the games in a separate kind of packaging? Is it because you read an article that said the PCE was designed with a CD system in mind?
None of those things would really make a difference to me on the user end. I would be much more concerned that both options cost much more than their base systems (or a Super Famicom, if I didn't have one yet), and that both options would allow the base systems to play games that they never could on their own. To me, they would seem like add-ons that effectively function as separate consoles, and both have separate libraries.
At the very least, I think you have to say that if the PCE and PCE-CD are the same, then so are the Mega Drive and Mega CD.
By the way, the base PC Engine's first retail price in 1987 was 24,800 yen (from which it did not drop much), and the CD-ROM unit with IFU briefcase was 57,300 yen. The Duo, when it first went on sale in September 1991, was 59,800 yen. The Duo-R in March 1993 was something just under 40,000 yen. The Super System Card 3.0 was 9,800 yen.
How the different system cards fit in is a whole other can of worms.
Finally someone who gets it. Thanks for sticking up to me SamIAm. BTW, I have tried the green eggs and ham ie PCe/TG-16 and do like it much! :mrgreen:
It seems there are two horses in this race, the haves and the have nots. The haves don't accept the fact that the have nots should have a say when it comes to how games are categorized. The haves just assume it's a standard fare upgrade despite being twice as expensive as a base unit, both then and now, and everybody simply gets one or misses out. They fail to get the gist that it is a separate system with unique hardware and software requirements. The have nots may occasionally bitch and moan about being excluded but ultimately either accept the fact that they have been barred access, or they pay up for the CD system. As for me, I've accepted that I can't play SuperCD games without buying more hardware and am okay with that. There are still tons of great gameplay experiences available on the Hucard format. I just wish people would treat them as the two distinct libraries that they are. Props to Aetherbyte for giving a nod to us poor folks by creating the first ever physical release Hucard homebrew, Atlantean! :wink:
CD Audio isn't everything. There's good and bad chiptunes as well as good and bad redbook audio. I used to hate the lameo pop/rock scores from noname poser groups that played as bgm tracks in many PS1/PS2 games. Devs used to work really hard composing chiptune soundtracks for their games, and all that turned into with the comeuppance of disc based media containing compressed or uncompressed PCM, was that developers didn't have to work at producing music for their games, and instead many took the low road of licensing the cheapest crap to use as score. Nintendo apparently still used MIDI well into the Game Cube era to great effect, and many Wii / Wii-U games contained fully orchestrated soundtracks by way of the Japanese equivalent of the Philharmonic.
I am by no means suggesting that SuperCD games used "filler" soundtracks; in fact judging by gameplay videos on Youtube, as well as my own personal experience with a handful of SuperCD games released on Virtual Console (I would personally love to play Star Parodier on real hardware as I have a soft spot for cute-em-ups), many titles had fantastic scores which really complemented the native synth output by the PCe/Turbografx. In fact you can play and appreciate them in most any CD player. It was really the PS1 era where many 3rd party devs rushed to produce games, that game soundtracks took a backseat.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SamIAm on June 15, 2016, 03:34:44 AM
I consider Sega/Mega-CD games part of the Genesis/MD library, just as I count Neo Geo CD games as part of the Neo Geo library. I also count all of those SNES games with a couple extra chips inside and Sattelaview games. I also count Mega Modem and Sega Channel games as real. Same with FDS games.
Well, at least you're being fair.
I still think that these consoles and libraries are best classified as separate and only appreciated as closely related.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Necromancer on June 15, 2016, 04:12:45 AM
I don't think you could tell PC Engine users with a straight face that the CD systems, which until their twilight years were fantastically more expensive than base Hucard systems....
In Japan only; here they were soon relatively cheap (especially compared to the cost of a plain ol' CD player), and the TurboDuo was quite a bargain considering the value of the included games.
If you're going to base you argument on a very narrow and specific time frame, why not say the CD isn't just a separate system but that it doesn't exist at all because you couldn't buy one in October 1987? :roll:
I guess it comes down to how you define a "console" and "console games". To me, there's a certain uniformity to the idea, or a certain standardization, and anything that causes one guy to be able to play a game and another guy to not be able to play a game violates that whole concept. By definition, it becomes necessary to say that these guys have two different consoles.
Following this logic to its ultimate conclusion, the PCE is really five different systems - Hueys, CDs, Super CDs, Arcade CDs, and GE CDs. :wink:
It seems there are two horses in this race, the haves and the have nots. The haves don't accept the fact that the have nots should have a say when it comes to how games are categorized. The haves just assume it's a standard fare upgrade despite being twice as expensive as a base unit, both then and now, and everybody simply gets one or misses out. They fail to get the gist that it is a separate system with unique hardware and software requirements. The have nots may occasionally bitch and moan about being excluded but ultimately either accept the fact that they have been barred access....
Nobody thinks less of you because you don't have a CD system, nobody is discriminating against you, and nobody is stopping you from buying a CD system or playing 'em for free in Mednefan. The only 'have nots' are the people that have decided to limit themselves to hueys only.
As for how they're categorized, who really gives a shit? It's interesting to discuss and each side has their reasons (some more logical than others), but there's no definitive write or wrong answer. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion on the matter, and one person's has no bearing on what another person buys, plays, etc.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 15, 2016, 05:09:34 AM
Before the Genesis and TG-16 launched, there was magazine coverage and ads showing the Turbo-CD along side the TG-16, with pics of the physical discs and screenshots of Monster Lair and Fighting Street. I got a Genesis at launch and became a Sega fanboy because magazines told me that it was a war and I had to choose a side. But even before I soon gave in and got a TG-16 with plans to buy the Turbo CD within months, I still never once thought of the CD games as a separate console or library. And throughout the console war generation, none of the hardcore and casual gamers I knew thought any different. I never even heard anyone try and argue something so silly until at least 15 years later. We didn't hear someone say the other day that 'technically' the CD-ROM predates the PCE launch. We lived reality ourselves.
Now we have people who didn't get into 16-bit for a decade or two and people who had a narrow isolated view at the time because their parents bought them a SNES (especially if they graduated from NES), trying to rewrite history and create rules for everything. No group feels the need for a selective sets rules more than SNES fans (with Nintendo fans close behind), who are stuck in a console war mentality and are so insecure about the console they know is superior either way. A 21Mhz cpu in a cart counts as a real game, but a CD game that uses no redbook or adpcm is fake. A Saturn game that uses a ram cart for extra load space the same as the PCE worked is fake. A Nintendo 64 game that uses an upgrade which physically replaces and increases the system ram is real.
The games are the games. Get over it.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: wiseau on June 15, 2016, 05:20:07 AM
Well if the CDs were separate then it'd be one of the most pathetic libraries you'd ever see at a mere 20-something games, or 40-something with a special addon. Think the only thing below that would be the Jaguar CD.
Title: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: esteban on June 15, 2016, 05:57:09 AM
There's at least two types of Games Express system cards. One of which can only be played on a Duo or Super CD combo.
True. I guess that makes it six different systems.... or seven if you include the 1.0 card and Altered Beast........ or nine when you count the SGX and LA. :lol:
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: elmer on June 15, 2016, 07:02:39 AM
This is all just craziness perpetrated by collectards in order to segment their obessions in to measurable goalposts so that they can see who has is the biggest tool! :roll:
Here's an example that Americans will probably find a bit easier to understand that Europeans ...
Let say I'm buying a truck, but I think that I might want to buy a travel trailer later (large caravan to Brits).
The truck comes from the factory with a hitch so that I can attach the travel trailer, but if I'm going to be pulling a heavy travel trailer (my choice), then I'm going to need an larger cooler in the engine to stop it overheating, and I'm also going to need a brake-controller in order activate the electronic brakes on the trailer when I brake in the truck.
Now ... I can buy the truck in a "base" package that doesn't have any of these extra frills, because most people don't want them.
I can also buy the truck in a "limited" package that already includes the upgraded engine cooler and nice leather seats. But not the brake-controller.
But the dealer will quite-happily take my money to install the factory-supplied engine cooler package onto the "base" truck.
Either way, they'll charge me to add a brake controller.
So I can have ...
"base" package "limited" package "base" package, plus cooler upgrade, plus brake controller "limited" package, plus brake controller
Only a very strange person thinks that these are all totally different trucks! :-k
IMHO, it's the same truck in all the cases, just with some options that I can choose to buy, or not, depending upon how I want to spend my time "playing".
The real "difference" comes when I'm deciding between a Ford, a Chevy, or a Toyota.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Necromancer on June 15, 2016, 07:28:25 AM
Don't forget the truck nuts!
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 15, 2016, 07:49:04 AM
Before the Genesis and TG-16 launched, there was magazine coverage and ads showing the Turbo-CD along side the TG-16, with pics of the physical discs and screenshots of Monster Lair and Fighting Street. I got a Genesis at launch and became a Sega fanboy because magazines told me that it was a war and I had to choose a side. But even before I soon gave in and got a TG-16 with plans to buy the Turbo CD within months, I still never once thought of the CD games as a separate console or library. And throughout the console war generation, none of the hardcore and casual gamers I knew thought any different. I never even heard anyone try and argue something so silly until at least 15 years later. We didn't hear someone say the other day that 'technically' the CD-ROM predates the PCE launch. We lived reality ourselves.
Now we have people who didn't get into 16-bit for a decade or two and people who had a narrow isolated view at the time because their parents bought them a SNES (especially if they graduated from NES), trying to rewrite history and create rules for everything. No group feels the need for a selective sets rules more than SNES fans (with Nintendo fans close behind), who are stuck in a console war mentality and are so insecure about the console they know is superior either way. A 21Mhz cpu in a cart counts as a real game, but a CD game that uses no redbook or adpcm is fake. A Saturn game that uses a ram cart for extra load space the same as the PCE worked is fake. A Nintendo 64 game that uses an upgrade which physically replaces and increases the system ram is real.
The games are the games. Get over it.
Here's food for thought:
The Turbografx launched in 1988 or 89 or whenever. The exact date doesn't matter. Followed shortly thereafter were the CDROM docking unit which plugged into the expansion port of the console, CDROM unit, and system card, expanding it to play games with redbook audio on CDROM format. So starting off the bat you get the benefit of Turbochip games, followed thereafter by CDROM games if you plunk down the money for a CDROM unit, available separately for retail.
Must all be be the same system because you can play both Turbochips and CDROMs on a prperly equipped Turbografx, right? Keep reading...
The Nintendo Game Cube launched in 2001. Also launched in 2001 was the Game Boy Advance. Shortly thereafter followed the Game Boy Player, which included a docking unit that plugs into the expansion port of the Game Cube, and a special Game Boy Player disc which allows Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games to be played on the Game Cube hardware. One can argue that the expansion port on the base of the Game Cube was specifically designed to accomdate the Game Boy Player.
By that logic, the Game Cube was specifically designed to play Game Boy games. Therefore all Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games should be considered a part of the larger Game Cube library simply because they were playable on properly equipped Game Cube using an attachment available separately at retail.
See how silly that sounds? Nobody would argue that Game Boy Advance carts are Game Cube titles, nor that Super Game Boy enhanced Game Boy carts are somehow SNES games simply because they have an enhanced color pallet with screen borders and are playable on the TV through the game console. Well there was one specific Game Boy title, Space Invaders, with a built in 128 kbyte SNES ROM that executed from RAM, but I digress...
So if Game Boy Advance and Game Cube games are considered separate entities with unique libraries, then the Hucards and Super CDs should be considered separate libraries as well. All can be considered Duo games yes, but not all of them play on the original Turbografx / PC Engine, so blanketly referring to CDROMs as PCe or TG-16 games is a misnomer.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: ginoscope on June 15, 2016, 08:02:20 AM
You had to go there I have to see trucks with nuts on them everyday on the way home here in Texas. Like who really thought it was a good idea to dangle nuts to the back of a pickup. Talk about compensating lol.
Anyway on topic the way I have always seen it is that if I can use the system by itself then it's a new system. In the case of turbo and sega cd those units would not function without the main unit. I know the cdx, X-eye, and duo would debunk this theory but that is how I have always looked at it.
I remember when I got my CD system and being a CD snob and hucards were garbage lol. I missed out on some great late releases like New Adventure Island and Neutopia 2. If I could go back and slap 16 year old me I would.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: elmer on June 15, 2016, 08:12:00 AM
By that logic, the Game Cube was specifically designed to play Game Boy games. Therefore all Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games should be considered a part of the larger Game Cube library simply because they were playable on properly equipped Game Cube using an attachment available separately at retail.
Errrr ... nope. And even suggesting such a silly thing makes me wonder if you're just trolling. :-k
Adding a completely different, and separately-released, console's hardware onto the bottom of the GameCube doesn't suddenly make a GameCube into a GBA in any sane person's eyes.
Neither did adding a Creative Labs 3DO Blaster into a PC suddenly make 3DO games into "PC" games, and nor does having a PC-FXGA in a PC suddenly make PC-FX games into "PC" games.
They're separate systems.
But adding a CD-ROM player into a PC so that you can play all the PC games that were released only on CD-ROM doesn't mean that those games (like Diablo, Myst, etc) suddenly aren't "PC" games and need a whole new "collecting" category.
There's a difference between expanding the storage means of an existing console/machine, and adding in the entire hardware from a different and separately-available console just so that you can play its library of games.
By your logic we should have totally different categories of PC games for 5.25" floppy, 3.5" floppy, CD, LD, DVD, and Blu-Ray.
That's "collector" thinking, not "player" thinking!
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 15, 2016, 08:13:43 AM
The other day I saw a pair of silver nuts hanging off of the far right corner of the bumper of a cherry red old beater of a sports car. I imagined the driver looking similar to his car.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 15, 2016, 09:15:09 AM
The GBA player is honestly a lot more like a Sega CD than a PCE CD in that it's loaded with chips. Most of a GBA is in a GB Player.
Which really makes it more like the old cards you could put in an Amiga 2000 that were basically an entire IBM AT. At that point it's kinda two systems at the same time.
For what it's worth, the argument that Mega CD is the same as Megadrive works perfectly to me, but for the fact that Sega made the stuff and they seem to think the add-ons make for different systems. It's not like there are any controller ports on a Mega CD, you need the Megadrive (a beautiful looking system, btw) to do anything so it's all just "Genesis" to me. Sega disagrees.
Similarly, if it's ever proven that Mona Lisa is a self portrait we're still going to call it Mona Lisa because that's what it's called per the guy that made it.
Going back to the metric of "will it run the same code":
PCE - %90
Mega CD - (depends, maybe %90, maybe very little)
GBPlayered out Cube - nothing
The GB Player argument is the worst one yet. :)
Title: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: esteban on June 15, 2016, 09:25:39 AM
^ Beautiful?! Ridiculous. :)
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Bonknuts on June 15, 2016, 10:50:05 AM
Haha. It's clear that the PCE outsiders have a very Sega/Nintendo centic view of PCE. Look, if you're stuck in such a mindset.. then that's all on you. The majority of people that had the Duos BITD regard the library as a single entity, with hucards being legacy. If you're so rigid that all definitions in the retro scene need to fit neatly together, universally, well.. sucks to be you. Good luck with that. Meanwhile, I'll continue to enjoy the hucard and CD library as a single entity with worry or qualms.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 15, 2016, 11:39:08 AM
By that logic, the Game Cube was specifically designed to play Game Boy games. Therefore all Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games should be considered a part of the larger Game Cube library simply because they were playable on properly equipped Game Cube using an attachment available separately at retail.
Errrr ... nope. And even suggesting such a silly thing makes me wonder if you're just trolling. :-k
The point I was trying to make was that CD System started it's life as add on hardware. We also don't refer to GBA games as DS simply because they run on a DS Phat or DS Lite. In fact I played GBA more often than not on my DS Phat because the GBA SP was so tiny it hurt my man hands.
First came PCe. Then the CDROM. Then the Duo. I think we can both agree that SuperCD and Hucard are Duo games. The Duo system is an Umbrella over both formats. The original PC Engine and Tubografx only played Hucards. So when I think of PCe or TG-16, I think of Hucards. When I hear the name Duo, I think of both.
So the all encompassing Duo system is both formats. That's why it's called a "Duo" meaning two. PC Engine or Turbografx simply did not ship with CDROM capability, so the Super CD cannot fit under the umbrella of stock hardware. Just compare these two images. Do they look remotely like the same thing? (http://www.multimods.com/BoxedTG/Bonk3Hu5.JPG) (http://www.videogameauctions.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Bonk-3-Turbo-Duo.jpg)
I own Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon on CD and I also own it on vinyl record. Additionally, I own MOON8 by Brad Smith, a demake for the NES as chiptune album. I would not consider the CD and Vinyl release of DSOTM as part of the same format, and certainly not the chiptune cart which sounds nothing like the other two. (http://img13.deviantart.net/408e/i/2012/288/1/d/pink_floyd_8_bit_by_stardust4ever-d5hv8xp.jpg)
Same album, different format. Likewise I wouldn't consider the CD and Hucard versions of Bonk III the same format either, even if it plays mostly the same on a Duo system. You can't play CDs in a record player any more than you can play SuperCDs on a stock PCe/Turbo. The media is incompatible.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Punch on June 15, 2016, 12:49:00 PM
This is the dumbest argument yet, and you still stand by it. Ok.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 15, 2016, 01:28:14 PM
Quote
So the all encompassing Duo system is both formats. That's why it's called a "Duo" meaning two. PC Engine or Turbografx simply did not ship with CDROM capability, so the Super CD cannot fit under the umbrella of stock hardware. Just compare these two images. Do they look remotely like the same thing?
The SG-1000 simply did not ship with Sega My Card capability, so the Sega My Card cannot fit under the umbrella of stock hardware.
Just compare these two games. Do they look remotely like the same thing?
Only a very strange person thinks that these are all totally different trucks! :-k
IMHO, it's the same truck in all the cases, just with some options that I can choose to buy, or not, depending upon how I want to spend my time "playing".
The real "difference" comes when I'm deciding between a Ford, a Chevy, or a Toyota.
Surely you are looking at different lines of vehicles from those manufacturers, right? A Camry vs. a Carolla, that kind of thing.
Assuming that you are, here's a question: how different does a car have to be in order for you the consumer to accept it as belonging in an entirely different line, and not merely being a variant? Will changing the body alone do it? Will changing the stuff under the hood alone do it? It's not an easy question to answer, and I think we could get a range of subjective takes.
My point is this: if the manufacturer added something to one model that more than doubled its price and gave it the ability to do something really fantastic that no other vehicle could do, would they be justified in giving it a different name and selling it as its own line even if all the other stuff was the same as another line?
I think they would.
This is why dismissing the CD drive as "just storage" like it's some minor option is doing it a disservice IMHO. From a user-centric viewpoint, especially in the context of the time, it practically makes the PC Engine into a car that can drive underwater. A little sound upgrade, like the Master System's FM module, would be a minor option, but they weren't selling this as a little sound upgrade. One Japanese ad I saw said "This system can hold games 1000x larger than Dragon Quest 3!"
Now, did Hudson and co. brand the CD system as a new line? Well, no. Branding, frankly, is the main reason why I think old-timers say it's all PCE.
Alternatively, was Sega's "Welcome To The Next Level" nothing but hype, and the Mega CD nothing but a Siamese twin-head that suddenly sprang out of the Mega Drive's collar one day? Perhaps it was.
And perhaps it mostly doesn't matter!
Mostly, I don't think about this at all. The only reason why I'm giving my two cents now is because I believe that if you're going to lay out the history for future generations and newcomers like StarDust4Ever, it's nice to draw a big fat boundary between the Hucard system and the CD system. I think that anybody who expects this to be like a console and not like a bloody PC, whether they came from a Sega-oriented background or not, would find it odd and confusing to think of all this different crap as one thing.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 15, 2016, 02:06:50 PM
Mostly, I don't think about this at all. The only reason why I'm giving my two cents now is because I believe that if you're going to lay out the history for future generations and newcomers like StarDust4Ever, it's nice to draw a big fat boundary between the Hucard system and the CD system. I think that anybody who expects this to be like a console and not like a bloody PC, whether they came from a Sega-oriented background or not, would find it odd and confusing to think of all this different crap as one thing.
:clap:
BTW my background is more Nintendo as I have every console just about, but I had plenty of friends bitd with Sega systems. I started retrogaming with NES in 2002 and expanded from there. I didn't really branch out from there until I got a Genesis in 2011 and Atari in 2012.
I honestly didn't even know what a "Turbografx" was until Nintendo announced it for Virtual Console on the Wii in 2006. I had so much fun playing the TG-16 VC titles that I really missed them so in 2014 I shopped around and bought a Turbografx on eBay.
Still wish I could play Star Parodier again though without jumping through hoops to boot into the Wii menu on my Wii-U. I only ever bought Star Parodier and Cho Aniki from the CD library on my Wii due to the extra storage requirements of the compressed audio. Star Parodier was hella fun; Cho Aniki not so much. They should never make a SHMUP with a player ship that big. Nearly impossible to dodge shots with all that humongous man junk in the way... :-k
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: elmer on June 15, 2016, 03:51:06 PM
The real "difference" comes when I'm deciding between a Ford, a Chevy, or a Toyota.
Surely you are looking at different lines of vehicles from those manufactures, right? A Camry vs. a Carolla, that kind of thing.
Nope, absolutely not. That's your line-of-thinking, not mine.
To me, the camra vs corolla choice is one of basic capability within the same manufacturer's line.
Like a Sega Master vs a Sega Genesis.
Or a PC Engine vs a SuperGrafx.
The CD-ROM2 & Super CD-ROM systems were add-ons to the basic package, not machines in their own right.
You can't play a PCE CD game with just a CD-ROM2 ... you need an original PCE/SuperGrafx to plug into it.
Your "big" choice is which manufacturer do you want to trust with your money ... Ford, Chevy, Toyota ... or maybe Nintendo, Sega or NEC.
Yes, the CD-ROM2 and IFU were horribly expensive when they came out.
The still doesn't make them separate machines.
That's just because CD-ROM technology was horrendously expensive back then.
The CD-ROM2 was actually the cheapest CD-ROM player that you could buy back then ... and "yes", it's a SCSI CD-ROM, so you can plug it into a PC. I posted the advert for NEC selling that before.
That's the point ... you've got to look at the actual history at the time in order to really understand what was going on back then.
The only reason why I'm giving my two cents now is because I believe that if you're going to lay out the history for future generations and newcomers like StarDust4Ever, it's nice to draw a big fat boundary between the Hucard system and the CD system. I think that anybody who expects this to be like a console and not like a bloody PC, whether they came from a Sega-oriented background or not, would find it odd and confusing to think of all this different crap as one thing.
... but by doing so, you're missing the real story and history, and over-simplifying things just to avoid confusing folks who don't want to be bothered to actually think or learn.
Any comparision to a PC is 100% applicable.
Just look at who made manufactured this console, and their previous history.
They're a PC company! This was their first "game console". They didn't necessarily understand what people expected from a "game console".
And why should they?
You're talking about few years after the great videogame crash, and the subsequent totally-unexpected success and rise of Nintendo into becoming a household name.
NEC had sold lots of PC-88 series of machines. Why is it so hard to believe that someone could believe that there might be a market for an "expandable" console?
You don't have to look far to see the PC Engine Modem and Keyboard ... and the Mouse actually shipped!
Just because Nintendo and Sega only wanted to make "games" machines, doesn't mean that that's how NEC originally saw the opportunity for the PC Engine.
Even if we ignore all the interviews that tell us that NEC/Hudson designed the PCE to be a CD-ROM machine from the start ... just look at the physical evidence, and how NEC's "cheap" CD-ROM unit fits into exactly the same depth as the PC Engine in an IFU.
They were designed together! It shows!
Now ... compare that to the Mega-CD.
It's a f**king mess ... both as a physical piece of hardware sitting underneath the original MegaDrive, and as a technical design.
The Sega CD is a totally separate processing unit that disables the Genesis CPU and DMAs the screen directly to the Genesis VDP for display. It's the 1990's equivalent of OnPlay or Twitch.
From a technical POV, I couldn't decide to laugh or cry when I first saw the developer docs for the silly thing back when it came out.
In comparison, the CD-ROM2 works with the existing PCE, and doesn't replace or shut-off anything.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SamIAm on June 15, 2016, 05:56:18 PM
To me, the camra vs corolla choice is one of basic capability within the same manufacturer's line.
Like a Sega Master vs a Sega Genesis.
???
Do these two not qualify as different consoles, then?
If they don't to you, that's fine, but in that case I think our sense of what the word "console" means is so different that we won't get much out of debating much further.
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Your "big" choice is which manufacturer do you want to trust with your money ... Ford, Chevy, Toyota ... or maybe Nintendo, Sega or NEC.
I have a very hard time believing that you're not giving any consideration to which of each company's multiple product lines is best for you.
By this logic, there are no Nintendo consoles. There is only "the" Nintendo console, and it is in a constant state of evolution.
Have I misunderstood you?
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The CD-ROM2 & Super CD-ROM systems were add-ons to the basic package, not machines in their own right.
You can't play a PCE CD game with just a CD-ROM2 ... you need an original PCE/SuperGrafx to plug into it.
I very much support thinking of the PCE-CD hardware as an expansion of the Hucard system. I'd say the same for the Mega CD.
This whole thread started because of confusion over the games more than the systems. Are PCE-CD games PCE games? Are Mega CD games Mega Drive games?
There are good reasons to say yes and no to both. Any acknowledgement of the "no" side will virtually always be on the grounds that the hardware has essentially become something else.
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The Sega CD is a totally separate processing unit that disables the Genesis CPU and DMAs the screen directly to the Genesis VDP for display. It's the 1990's equivalent of OnPlay or Twitch.
From a technical POV, I couldn't decide to laugh or cry when I first saw the developer docs for the silly thing back when it came out.
In comparison, the CD-ROM2 works with the existing PCE, and doesn't replace or shut-off anything.
That's fascinating and all, but I would suggest thinking back to the Japanese guy in 1992 choosing between a Super CD and Mega CD.
I don't believe his choices are really that profoundly different from his perspective as a consumer and gamer.
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... but by doing so, you're missing the real story and history, and over-simplifying things just to avoid confusing folks who don't want to be bothered to actually think or learn.
Any comparision to a PC is 100% applicable.
Just look at who made manufactured this console, and their previous history.
They're a PC company! This was their first "game console". They didn't necessarily understand what people expected from a "game console".
Is the PCE a game console? No, seriously, is it a game console?
If you want to say it exists as its own weird PC-hybrid thing, then that's fine. You listed lots of good reasons to do so.
But if it is a game console, then I see nothing unfair about breaking it down on the same terms as other consoles.
One of the core ideas of a console as I see it, and as I think the layman sees it, is that if you have it, you should be able to play all of the games for it. Uniformity and standardization are key. In other words, if someone has a PC Engine but cannot play a PC Engine game, then it's actually not a PC Engine game, or he doesn't actually have a PC Engine.
Obviously, with things like the N64 RAM expansion, it's not such a black-and-white world. However, if we seek to answer the question "What is the PC Engine?" and we start with "It's a game console." then we are setting people up to have certain expectations.
Defying those expectations is not a bad thing, but does it have to start with teasing people with a slice of cake on the other side of a glass wall and letting them bang their heads into it and then we say "Oh, you didn't know?"
That doesn't seem like a good way to start a lesson to me. Is it the best choice we have to teach PCE history?
...I guess it could be.
But I don't like it, and when people ask me to talk about the PCE library/libraries, one of the first things I'm going to do is say that there are Hucard games and there are CD games. To me, anyway, this division is one of the defining characteristics of the PCE.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Bonknuts on June 15, 2016, 06:45:40 PM
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But if it is a game console, then I see nothing unfair about breaking it down on the same terms as other consoles.
And therein lies the problem. It's not about fair or unfair, it's about your, and others unfamiliar with PCE history, inability to reconcile that not everything needs to neatly fit into some universal category. Things in life are rarely that simple, and when you do force these things - you omit important details that otherwise describe these things/situations/categories/etc.
If a person is coming from the outside, into the PCE scene and wants to be part of it, understand it, then they need to take the time to understand the history and perception of the consoles as it was, is, and perceived. Not forced into some contrite defines so that they can easily make purchasing decision. That responsibility solely falls on them, to learn about it, and become informed. I mean, that's true of ANYthing you decide to put your money and time into. Making.. no changing(!) definitions just to suite outside company and potential increase based? No. Just, no.
This attempt to redefine the PCE, strips of its history, and of its origin, and of its story. These are PC Engine games; hucards or CDs. From a hardware level, to capable level, to a consumer level. If Amercian importanting Japanese games BITD, without internet, can figure this stuff out - Japanese game consumers easily had a bigger advantage at their hands. I don't buy this whole confused Japanese gamer audience thing. NEC clearly made their choice of which format was dominant with the release of the Duo in 1991, going forward. I don't understand why this is so hard for people to understand. And I don't understand why this artificial division in the library along hucard and CD games needs to exist to please history revisionists and other centric retro gaming views.
As far as people new retro gamers coming to the PCE scene and trying to figure stuff out - they get the "buy a Duo" advance.. and what did they almost always do? Buy the hucard only systems because the Duos are too "expensive". Then complain about their upgrade options, followed by a defensive claim that CDs are a different "platform". Why? Because they bring their Sega/Nintendo centric views into the picture and think they know better or whatever. If you don't want to buy Duo on top of that TG16 or PCE that you bought, then fine. Don't enjoy the rest of the majority of PCE awesome titles. Limit yourself to hucards and division addon mentality. While you at it, slap a SegaCD sticker on your CD setup if you do eventually get one. I'm sure it'll make you feel right as rain.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 15, 2016, 06:54:55 PM
Nobody questions the significant practical differences between the formats, but that doesn't make for different systems. The format alone doesn't mean f*ck. If I write a song about how future generations will be so paralyzed by masturbatory OCD bullshit that they'll need adult diapers and put an MP3 of it on a thumb drive and hand it to you then you have an MP3. If you copy that f*cker and send it in an email you have an MP3. If the guy that gets that email makes a Torrent for it then thousands of people will have the MP3. If one of them backs up their HD with a portable HD then the MP3 will be one two machines. If someone backs up the backup onto DVDs...that's another MP3. It's ALL f*ckIN MP3s though, understand?
Now if anyone burns that song onto a standard CD-R in audio CD format...then you have another system. Even if the audio program is identical it's now in CDDA format which is totally different. If I sent you a multitrack wave format unmixed version of the song, that's totally different. If you zip it, it's different. If you remix it and add a verse about people who are only 42 acting like they were in The Great War and save that shit in Real Player format, that's different.
BUT!
Your computer can play ALL THAT SHIT.
Your computer is the Duo. The song about how crazy you are is the game. The MP3 is the HuCARD. The CD is...a CD.
This thread sucks.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: elmer on June 15, 2016, 07:15:48 PM
Do these two not qualify as different consoles, then?
Nope ... of course they do.
As do the Corolla vs Camry, or in the case of my argument, the Toyota Tacoma vs Toyota Tundra (1/2 ton truck vs 3/4 ton truck).
You choose your basic "capability" (i.e. console generation), but yet you still have "options" within that "capability" (i.e. console generation) that effect what you can haul (i.e. play).
I'm sorry if that was a unclear to those many (most) folks that haven't actually either owned a truck, or had to figure out how to make the darned thing pull a small mobile home (caravan to Brits) behind it.
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I have a very hard time believing that you're not giving any consideration to which of each company's multiple product lines is best for you.
Nope, I am ... which is why I consider the CD-ROM2/Super CDROM as part of the same product line as the PC Engine.
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Have I misunderstood you?
We may be getting caught up on semantics! :wink:
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I very much support thinking of the PCE-CD hardware as an expansion of the Hucard system. I'd say the same for the Mega CD.
This whole thread started because of confusion over the games more than the systems. Are PCE-CD games PCE games? Are Mega CD games Mega Drive games?
1) Definitely "yes".
2) "yes" ... but only because Sega really, really, really, wanted sell the Mega-CD as an add-on and not as a different console (which it 90% was), and so crippled it by making it output its video through the regular Genesis output, requiring all the DMA nonsense.
They didn't even bother with that silly sham when it came to the 32x. :roll:
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That's fascinating and all, but I would suggest thinking back to the Japanese guy in 1992 choosing between a Super CD and Mega CD.
I don't believe his choices are really that profoundly different from his perspective as a consumer and gamer.
You're right ... that's the difference between "reality" and "marketing", which is why the marketing folks get paid so well for selling their souls! :wink:
I'm more interested in the technical truth and the thinking and reasons behind it than I am in how the end-product is positioned to the "great-unwashed" in order to get them to buy it.
If you want to count all games with "Blast Processing" as a separate "collectable" category just because the adverts told you that Sonic was something "special", then go for it.
I'd prefer to look at it all from an "academic" or "industry" perspective, rather than an "advertising" perspective.
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Is the PCE a game console? No, seriously, is it a game console?
If you want to say it exists as its own weird PC-hybrid thing, then that's fine. You listed lots of good reasons to do so.
But if it is a game console, then I see nothing unfair about breaking it down on the same terms as other consoles.
Yes, it is a "game console", at least in my experience and in hindsight.
But do you know what that meant exactly to NEC's executives "at the time"?
They certainly didn't market it or really treat it like Nintendo or Sega did.
They had very different relationships with developers ... much more like a home computer manufacturer.
They let Hudson take a huge portion of the royalties, almost as though they were just licensing the technology (a bit like 3DO later on).
There's a deeper story here, and I don't think that it's been fully told, yet.
Whatever it is ... the relationship between Hudson and NEC is totally different to how Nintendo and Sega behaved at the time, and trying to look back on the history of the PCE in the same terms as the NES/SNES/Master/MegaDrive is an oversimplification that doesn't do justice to just how revolutionary the PCE was at the time that it came out, or its place in history as the very first CD-ROM game console.
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One of the core ideas of a console as I see it, and as I think the layman sees it, is that if you have it, you should be able to play all of the games for it. Uniformity and standardization are key. In other words, if someone has a PC Engine but cannot play a PC Engine game, then it's actually not a PC Engine game, or he doesn't actually have a PC Engine.
That "idea" doesn't work, even for all the Nintendo machines.
You're fine for the NES and SNES, which bumped up the cost of every cartridge by putting special chips on board, but you've got the RAM expansion requirement for the N64, and then you've got the MegaCD, 32x, SATURN RAM, etc requirements for Sega.
There's a long history of requiring "add-ons" to be purchased in order to play certain console games, from those early RAM add-ons, to light-sensor guns, to mice, to Nintendo's Wii-Plus controller, or Sony's Move, or Microsoft's Kinect.
Now we're just about to enter the era of the PlayStation VR.
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That doesn't seem like a good way to start a lesson to me. Is it the best choice we have to teach PCE history?
...I guess it could be.
"The truth is complex" beats the heck out of "Here's an artificial arbitrary line" IMHO.
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But I don't like it, and when people ask me to talk about the PCE library/libraries, one of the first things I'm going to do is say that there are Hucard games and there are CD games. To me, anyway, this division is one of the defining characteristics of the PCE.
It's one of the simplest ways of describing things to folks at a party that have little knowledge, and uncertain interest, in the subject.
But by the time that someone has bothered to come to this forum and actually spend their money to buy a machine ... then I hope that we can help them enter a "bigger" world where shades-of-grey exist, and everything is much less simple, and much, much more interesting!
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SamIAm on June 15, 2016, 08:45:00 PM
I should have let my last post bake a little longer. I don't want to cover up or obscure the history of the PCE for the sake of making life easier.
Basically, I still think that PCE-CD game = PCE game as an unquestionable truth is dubious.
When it comes to any system, game hardware or otherwise, an addition or modification that comes at such an extreme cost and makes such an extreme difference in the system's capabilities could arguably be said to make it a different system altogether.
That was the point of my take on your car analogy.
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I'm more interested in the technical truth and the thinking and reasons behind it than I am in how the end-product is positioned to the "great-unwashed" in order to get them to buy it..
I don't see that as the current juxtaposition, though.
To me, regardless of how they conceived it, how they built it, or how they advertised it, the way that the end user experienced it is a really big deal.
I didn't have one of these back in the day, so maybe I should just shut up, but I am incredibly skeptical that people who bought the CD system assumed that they were merely getting Hucard games on a hi-fi format. I suspect they thought they were getting something more. You know, like Dragon Quest x1000.
Maybe that changed after the Hucard went down in flames and the CD system was the only thing left. Which, by the way, it seems like many old-timers were unaware of being precisely what happened in Japan until recently.
Anyway, I think gamers did get something more with games like Ys 1&2. Put that on a 4mb Hucard (heck, put it on two of 'em), and I guarantee nobody would care about it like they do now. It would just be another (good) game. The same goes for a lot of CD games.
This is why I remain unconvinced by MP3 and movie analogies. Take it off the CD, and it's not the same game. At worst, it will simply not be possible.
-----------------------------------------
EDIT: Ah, screw it.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 15, 2016, 09:05:46 PM
Fact still remains there are a lot more working Hucard only systems floating about than working CD-ROMs so not everyone who wants one can have without paying a premium. Law of supply and demand. Some gamers will have to settle without the CDROMs. I unfortunately am one of them. :-({|=
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: deubeul on June 15, 2016, 10:19:11 PM
I learned something today.
When I play Gate Of Thunder, I'm not playing on PC Engine.
OK...
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SamIAm on June 15, 2016, 10:44:24 PM
I'm just saying I think there's an argument to be made...just one valid argument among many fine counter-arguments...that you're playing on PC Engine CD.
Or Super CD-ROM2, or whatever.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: deubeul on June 15, 2016, 11:08:07 PM
...So that's still PC Engine.
I get your points, SAM, even if I don't totally agree.
But stardust entering the scene and claiming that the way I and most of other old timers perceive the PCE library is wrong, with his BS excessively too long arguments, starts to upset me a little.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 15, 2016, 11:32:34 PM
I get your points, SAM, even if I don't totally agree.
But stardust entering the scene and claiming that the way I and most of other old timers perceive the PCE library is wrong, with his BS excessively too long arguments, starts to upset me a little.
You know, I thought about that. But no matter how hard I try to cram it, that CDR simply won't fit into the Hucard slot! I should really shut up now... :-#
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SamIAm on June 15, 2016, 11:42:23 PM
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I get your points, SAM, even if I don't totally agree.
Thanks. :)
StarDust4Ever seems like a typical noob. I don't think he means any harm or disrespect. If he hangs around a little longer and keeps enjoying his games, I'm sure he'll be an asset to the community, and also realize that we like to keep things a little more succinct.
Like I'm one to talk. :mrgreen:
---------------- EDIT: Screw it, we're all tired, and I think we've all said our pieces. ----------------
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We may be getting caught up on semantics! :wink:
That's what this whole dumb argument amounts to, probably, but it's always fun to try and express one's ideas and interpretations. O:)
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: deubeul on June 16, 2016, 12:07:35 AM
I get your points, SAM, even if I don't totally agree.
But stardust entering the scene and claiming that the way I and most of other old timers perceive the PCE library is wrong, with his BS excessively too long arguments, starts to upset me a little.
You know, I thought about that. But no matter how hard I try to cram it, that CDR simply won't fit into the Hucard slot! I should really shut up now... :-#
I understand, man, that won't fit.
You came here, exposed your point, and asked us our.
We answered.
We respect your noob point of you.
Please respect our 20years old PCE lovers' point of view too.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: esteban on June 16, 2016, 02:47:37 AM
Is a HuCARD a card or a cartridge?
Discuss.
(http://junk.tg-16.com/images/cartridges.jpg)
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 16, 2016, 03:11:35 AM
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Anyway, I think gamers did get something more with games like Ys 1&2. Put that on a 4mb Hucard (heck, put it on two of 'em), and I guarantee nobody would care about it like they do now. It would just be another (good) game. The same goes for a lot of CD games.
Most CD games are comparable in content size to Sega and Nintendo carts. The fact that you're using 4 meg cards as an example us once again exposing your true intention of taking a round about way to "prove" that CD games couldn't be done on stock hardware. SFC got 48 meg games + add-on hardware compression. The Legend of Xanadu II would be smaller than 48 megs if you dropped the few redbook tracks and streaming voice acting. Even if you kept all of the sound samples in as non-adpcm channel samples. The chip tunes still sound great. Dracula X is a <16 meg game without the crappy cinemas.
As a Genesis fanboy, the day I became determined to get a TG-16 with Turbo-CD was the first time I saw screenshots of Ys I & II in a magazine. It was a dream come true, because the SMS version had such an impact on me. Seeing the ingame visuals blew my mind. Particularly the ruined column in Zepik Village. I continued to dream about the in-game content. A few cinematic pics thrown in only sweetened the deal. I'd give anything for a HuCard version today.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Necromancer on June 16, 2016, 04:01:31 AM
You came here, exposed your point, and asked us our.
We answered.
We respect your noob point of you.
Please respect our 20years old PCE lovers' point of view too.
And that's all this boils down to; noob point of view VS 20 year PCE veterans.
I just wanted to say that I agree with what elmer said about technical side of things. I know that most members here don't have the luxury of really understanding what's under the hood of the PCE and to code for it, but CD games really are nothing more than Hucard games. Loading data from the CD does not change that. It's the same hardware, same cpu, same coding style, etc.
There's this argument that hucards aren't large enough, or whatever, to handle CD games. Most CD games aren't that large, if you re-organized the data assets for redundancy (same code used over again per level, or sub level. Same graphics used over again, main sprites, enemies, etc, for levels and sub levels) - they'll realistically fit on a cartridge. If the CD format never took over at the dominant format, you would have seen an evolution of hucard technology. Those "bubbles" in SF2 and other hucards? There's nothing inside of them. There as lot of room for space AND advancement of hucard technology. Did you know that Street Fighter 2 could have fit under a regular hucard format? They extended the PCB only because they didn't want to use a single large rom (they used multiple roms). Anyway, the point is - is that you would have seen audio enhancements (either via hucard, or via backplace addon), you would have seen hucards with memory mappers, on board ram (populous already adds 32k of ram), etc. The CD format stopped this from happening. Any game on CD, is possible on hucard format (with the exception of FMV, but regular cinemas are fine). Obviously not Red Book audio. The CD audio part is an upgrade, the rest is just a format medium delivery mechanism.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: elmer on June 16, 2016, 06:44:50 AM
Most CD games are comparable in content size to Sega and Nintendo carts. The fact that you're using 4 meg cards as an example us once again exposing your true intention of taking a round about way to "prove" that CD games couldn't be done on stock hardware. SFC got 48 meg games + add-on hardware compression. The Legend of Xanadu II would be smaller than 48 megs if you dropped the few redbook tracks and streaming voice acting. Even if you kept all of the sound samples in as non-adpcm channel samples. The chip tunes still sound great. Dracula X is a <16 meg game without the crappy cinemas.
The SFC got precisely 2 48Mb(it) games, and 48Mb(its) is 6MB(ytes).
I've read that Star Ocean packs 13MB of graphics into 4MB, leaving 2MB for code and audio.
Xanadu 1 has approx 6MB of compressed files, plus 0.1MB code, plus 15MB of ADPCM, plus 527MB of CD audio.
Xanadu 2 has approx 9MB of compressed files, plus 0.1MB code, plus 1MB of ADPCM, plus 553MB of CD audio.
The software compression in the Xanadu games get approx 2.1-2.5x compression, and the hardware compression in Star Ocean gets approx 3.2x compression.
If you want to compare Star Ocean's 13MB graphics in 4MB, then Xanadu 2's 9MB of files decompress into 23MB of data (which mixes code and graphics).
The thing to me isn't that the basic size of the graphics is or isn't comparable, it's that from a developers POV, on the CD I can afford to do whatever I wish to do, and the cost-of-goods for the game isn't going to increase.
Cartridges cost a lot of money to make, and bumping up from one size to another could totally change the financial projections for the game.
CDs are cheap to make, and I can get my 59MB of uncompressed Xanadu 1 voice overs, plus 527MB of CD audio voice overs and music, and I can make the player's experience more immersive.
So I've got to both agree and disagree with folks ... while the basic gameplay isn't going to be really any different if I'm limited to a HuCard ... it's all the extra details that enhance the "experience" that developers could deliver when the CD medium freed them from worrying about cartridge sizes that makes the most difference to me.
That's why the PC Engine is so special. It's the very first time that developers could afford to deliver that kind of enhanced experience.
It's still the same darned machine that's delivering the experience, it's just the medium of the game's delivery that makes the CD an affordable way to manufacture/distribute that game.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: GoldenWheels on June 16, 2016, 07:51:09 AM
As far as people new retro gamers coming to the PCE scene and trying to figure stuff out - they get the "buy a Duo" advance.. and what did they almost always do? Buy the hucard only systems because the Duos are too "expensive". Then complain about their upgrade options, followed by a defensive claim that CDs are a different "platform". Why? Because they bring their Sega/Nintendo centric views into the picture and think they know better or whatever. If you don't want to buy Duo on top of that TG16 or PCE that you bought, then fine. Don't enjoy the rest of the majority of PCE awesome titles. Limit yourself to hucards and division addon mentality. While you at it, slap a SegaCD sticker on your CD setup if you do eventually get one. I'm sure it'll make you feel right as rain.
I made this very mistake, albeit for different reasons. I A: never thought I would be interested in the CD library (no idea why), and B: knew of the caps issues after a little research and was just plain paranoid to buy one. That was all before I found this place and learned more about the CD library and found reliable folks who refurb duos. So the step-bro gets my turbografx for xmas and I am out a few extra bucks I didn't need to be.
I have since told at least two people seeking advice"just get a duo, I can point you to a safe place to find one" and what did they do....bought a Turbo. The circle continues....
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: elmer on June 16, 2016, 08:00:12 AM
Basically, I still think that PCE-CD game = PCE game as an unquestionable truth is dubious.
When it comes to any system, game hardware or otherwise, an addition or modification that comes at such an extreme cost and makes such an extreme difference in the system's capabilities could arguably be said to make it a different system altogether.
Sam, my friend, you're really hung-up on the cost of the CD-ROM2 add-on when it came out. :wink:
IMHO, a Ferrari is still a "car", even if it costs more than a Ford. :-k
Back in 1989 I had no trouble at all in seeing the CD-ROM as just an add-on.
To me, it was no different from home computers that loaded their games off of cassette, and then you could buy a 3", 3.5" or 5.25" floppy drive as an expansion, and developers often provided "more" on their floppy releases ... and then eventually abandoned tape altogether.
And "yes", back in the early 1980s, a floppy controller and dual floppy drives could easily cost you far more than the original computer.
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To me, regardless of how they conceived it, how they built it, or how they advertised it, the way that the end user experienced it is a really big deal.
I didn't have one of these back in the day, so maybe I should just shut up, but I am incredibly skeptical that people who bought the CD system assumed that they were merely getting Hucard games on a hi-fi format. I suspect they thought they were getting something more. You know, like Dragon Quest x1000.
No, of course you knew that you were getting "more", that was the point of buying the add-on!
And that was precisely what developers could afford to deliver with the voice-overs in Ys, or the intro and music in Gate of Thunder.
But ... it's still the same PC Engine that's behind it all, you've just added a huge storage medium to it, and the ability play CD Audio.
Lots of home computers had add-ons, even audio ones.
I just don't see that any huge disconnect that requires classifying the PCE plus CD-ROM as a totally different machine to the PCE without the CD-ROM. That's just factually innaccurate.
Fact still remains there are a lot more working Hucard only systems floating about than working CD-ROMs so not everyone who wants one can have without paying a premium. Law of supply and demand. Some gamers will have to settle without the CDROMs. I unfortunately am one of them. :-({|=
Am I missing something? I don't see any great shortage of realatively-affordable PCE systems that can play the CD games ... they're the Duo/Duo-R models.
The only real shortage is in North American CD-ROM2 and North American System Card 3.0 units to add onto a TurboGrafx.
If you choose to go that route, and pay the huge premium for those, then that's your choice. The Japanese units play the North American CDs fine without any modification. It's only the HuCards that have any region-protection.
And for that, then you can either region-mod the unit, or just "collect" whatever boxes you like and then play the game on the console with a TurboEverdrive, or you can keep your existing hardware.
I really don't see that you've got much in the way of grounds to complain about the $225 price for a recapped and working Duo when you've just blown a bunch of money on reproduction HuCards.
That's entirely your choice ... but IMHO it pretty-much undercuts your protestations of poverty when it comes to PCE CD units.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: GoldenWheels on June 16, 2016, 08:06:23 AM
I really don't see that you've got much in the way of grounds to complain about the $225 price for a recapped and working Duo when you've just blown a bunch of money on reproduction HuCards.
That's entirely your choice ... but IMHO it pretty-much undercuts your protestations of poverty when it comes to PCE CD units.
Knowing Stardust from Atari Age I believe this is the case. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
Lay off the 7800 homebrews for a while Stardust my man. Your duo will be paid for in no time. :P
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 16, 2016, 08:26:41 AM
Yeah, if there's one purchase I'll never regret it's probably my first Duo.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Necromancer on June 16, 2016, 08:51:39 AM
I sometimes miss the GB and games I traded in for it, but I've never regretted getting my first either.
I really don't see that you've got much in the way of grounds to complain about the $225 price for a recapped and working Duo when you've just blown a bunch of money on reproduction HuCards.
Indeed. :lol:
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Bonknuts on June 16, 2016, 09:17:44 AM
All these salty people complaining about the price of a Duo; I beginning to doubt their commitment to sparkle motion..
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Gentlegamer on June 16, 2016, 09:28:21 AM
Stardust, go talk to Keith Courage and get a cherried out Duo-R!
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: crazydean on June 16, 2016, 09:57:59 AM
If you need some money to buy a Duo, sell the TG-16 along with some of that Atari garbage.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: johnnykonami on June 16, 2016, 09:59:23 AM
I'm surprised this became such a hot topic! I'll throw my worthless opinion into this mix. I got a TG-16 first, never got the CD-Rom attachment. Then my TG-16 died on me and I got a Duo in 1992. The upgrade at the time seemed significant to me - with the addition voice especially, followed of course by redbook audio. The games themselves seemed more expansive/complex in a lot of cases no doubt due simply to storage space. But even still I consider it part of the same family. I think of it as analogous to the Genesis vs. Sega CD. Same basic underlying hardware (I'm aware they added some more hardware features in the Sega CD itself) but in general games have the same style/vibe. I think this is partly due to the characteristic video features of particular consoles, i.e. resolution, color depth, etc. Think about the Genesis again, it has very characteristic video/audio qualities and they're both shared on the Genesis or the Sega CD. The Duo is the same in my mind. The same vibrant color quality, familiar resolution, etc. with lightened restrictions on memory and added redbook audio. I'm not sure if any newer special chips were added (Like the Sega CD did with scaling, apparently).
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Bonknuts on June 16, 2016, 10:20:59 AM
I'm surprised this became such a hot topic! I'll throw my worthless opinion into this mix. I got a TG-16 first, never got the CD-Rom attachment. Then my TG-16 died on me and I got a Duo in 1992. The upgrade at the time seemed significant to me - with the addition voice especially, followed of course by redbook audio.
A friend and I had the TGCD addon, before games went SuperCD, and they (CD 2.0 games) indeed felt more like the characteristic of hucards games in that connection. The SuperCD games felt more like an advancement to that (CD 2.0 games), but in the same way all consoles advance as the devs get more familiar with the hardware and competition between them (3rd part companies) raises the bar for expectations. I guess if you skipped original CD 2.0, SuperCD would have felt like a larger step. Even with the technology for 8megabit games on hucard, most hucard games during 1992 were less than 8 megabits (which was more of the standard for consoles of that generation). I'm not sure if that was a price thing NEC did in order to promote/encourage CD development and discourage hucard development, or if hucards were just relegated to "budget" titles as CD games became the premium. I'm sure the truth is somewhere along those lines.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: johnnykonami on June 16, 2016, 10:32:45 AM
all consoles advance as the devs get more familiar with the hardware and competition between them (3rd part companies) raises the bar for expectations. I guess if you skipped original CD 2.0, SuperCD would have felt like a larger step.
Yeah, this is a thought I had also. Stuff just gets better all the time (even on the same platform). Progress is basically inevitable. I know I didn't have experience with SFII, Parodius, Bomberman '94, etc. before switching over to CD, so certainly those close the gap even more. And yep, for me, CD-Rom and SuperCD are basically the same thing since I started buying/playing both formats at the same time. I can't really tell too much of a difference between those. Hell, Spriggan is a CD-Rom game and one of my favorite looking shooters on the system. Could have easily mixed it up with a SuperCD title.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 16, 2016, 10:44:10 AM
When I play Gate Of Thunder, I'm not playing on PC Engine.
OK...
Heh. Did you know Metal Combat isn't really a SNES game?
Yes, it is. I also have the bazooka shaped Super Scope for what it's worth, if that's what you're getting at. I have a handful of titles for it. Yoshi's Island is a nice diversion.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 16, 2016, 10:49:14 AM
You came here, exposed your point, and asked us our.
We answered.
We respect your noob point of you.
Please respect our 20years old PCE lovers' point of view too.
And that's all this boils down to; noob point of view VS 20 year PCE veterans.
I just wanted to say that I agree with what elmer said about technical side of things. I know that most members here don't have the luxury of really understanding what's under the hood of the PCE and to code for it, but CD games really are nothing more than Hucard games. Loading data from the CD does not change that. It's the same hardware, same cpu, same coding style, etc.
There's this argument that hucards aren't large enough, or whatever, to handle CD games. Most CD games aren't that large, if you re-organized the data assets for redundancy (same code used over again per level, or sub level. Same graphics used over again, main sprites, enemies, etc, for levels and sub levels) - they'll realistically fit on a cartridge. If the CD format never took over at the dominant format, you would have seen an evolution of hucard technology. Those "bubbles" in SF2 and other hucards? There's nothing inside of them. There as lot of room for space AND advancement of hucard technology. Did you know that Street Fighter 2 could have fit under a regular hucard format? They extended the PCB only because they didn't want to use a single large rom (they used multiple roms). Anyway, the point is - is that you would have seen audio enhancements (either via hucard, or via backplace addon), you would have seen hucards with memory mappers, on board ram (populous already adds 32k of ram), etc. The CD format stopped this from happening. Any game on CD, is possible on hucard format (with the exception of FMV, but regular cinemas are fine). Obviously not Red Book audio. The CD audio part is an upgrade, the rest is just a format medium delivery mechanism.
Nothing inside the SFII bubble? That is news to me. I thought the bankswitch logic chip was too big for a glop top so they needed a "fat" card. I would definitely have liked to see have seen more bankswitched cards though.
= = = = = = = =
I still respectfully disagree that CDs and Hucards are the same format, however I'd like to take the opportunity to apologize for getting carried away with my trollish rebuttals. I think we can agree to disagree on the Hucard versus CD issues and appreciate that everyone collects different things.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: esteban on June 16, 2016, 10:58:23 AM
A: They are different formats for the SAME PLATFORM/SYSTEM. However, it is true that the user base was fragmented (since some folks had HuCARD-only consoles). Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable to acknowledge THIS VERY REAL PROBLEM: fragmentation. To argue otherwise is silly! IF I CAN'T play a CD format game, then it is a very real obstacle that no amount of arguing can overcome.
Period.
/end
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 16, 2016, 10:58:24 AM
As far as people new retro gamers coming to the PCE scene and trying to figure stuff out - they get the "buy a Duo" advance.. and what did they almost always do? Buy the hucard only systems because the Duos are too "expensive". Then complain about their upgrade options, followed by a defensive claim that CDs are a different "platform". Why? Because they bring their Sega/Nintendo centric views into the picture and think they know better or whatever. If you don't want to buy Duo on top of that TG16 or PCE that you bought, then fine. Don't enjoy the rest of the majority of PCE awesome titles. Limit yourself to hucards and division addon mentality. While you at it, slap a SegaCD sticker on your CD setup if you do eventually get one. I'm sure it'll make you feel right as rain.
I made this very mistake, albeit for different reasons. I A: never thought I would be interested in the CD library (no idea why), and B: knew of the caps issues after a little research and was just plain paranoid to buy one. That was all before I found this place and learned more about the CD library and found reliable folks who refurb duos. So the step-bro gets my turbografx for xmas and I am out a few extra bucks I didn't need to be.
I have since told at least two people seeking advice"just get a duo, I can point you to a safe place to find one" and what did they do....bought a Turbo. The circle continues....
Yep, sounds like my situation exactly. It's a legacy that won't die!
The fact that more Hucard systems exist in good working condition than CD systems means this legacy will continue for some time, at least until someone creates an Everdrive-like SuperCD expansion for the Turbo/PCe that uses SDXC cards for CD image storage. :wink:
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 16, 2016, 11:07:18 AM
Fact still remains there are a lot more working Hucard only systems floating about than working CD-ROMs so not everyone who wants one can have without paying a premium. Law of supply and demand. Some gamers will have to settle without the CDROMs. I unfortunately am one of them. :-({|=
Am I missing something? I don't see any great shortage of realatively-affordable PCE systems that can play the CD games ... they're the Duo/Duo-R models.
The only real shortage is in North American CD-ROM2 and North American System Card 3.0 units to add onto a TurboGrafx.
If you choose to go that route, and pay the huge premium for those, then that's your choice. The Japanese units play the North American CDs fine without any modification. It's only the HuCards that have any region-protection.
And for that, then you can either region-mod the unit, or just "collect" whatever boxes you like and then play the game on the console with a TurboEverdrive, or you can keep your existing hardware. I really don't see that you've got much in the way of grounds to complain about the $225 price for a recapped and working Duo when you've just blown a bunch of money on reproduction HuCards.
That's entirely your choice ... but IMHO it pretty-much undercuts your protestations of poverty when it comes to PCE CD units.
You got me there, I think. One can also argue about the space issue. My plate is full right now collecting Hucard games (both US and Japan games). And yes I've got the Everdrive but it's more fun to collect physical media. I've still got space considerations to think about but burning repros of CD games on CDR would be easy and cheap if the original game is unobtainable.
At this time I'm not looking to add a new system to my collection but may do so in the future. I really enjoyed getting the AV Famicom in addition to my NES so I didn't have to deal with adapters anymore. some day I'll get the Japanese Duo system (or an IFU briefcase).
I tend to jump from one system to another with my playing habits and right now I'm addicted to Turbo/PCe.
I'm surprised this became such a hot topic! I'll throw my worthless opinion into this mix.
I kinda knew I was opening Pancora's Box when I started this thread. Just wanted to see where it leaded. :twisted:
Some of the discusion has been really enlightening though, and I've made up my mind to drop the trollish vernacular. I was arguing a losing side of the debate, so agreeing to disagree rather than try to win over my POV seems like the high road for now. :oops:
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Bonknuts on June 16, 2016, 11:37:08 AM
Nothing inside the SFII bubble? That is news to me. I thought the bankswitch logic chip was too big for a glop top so they needed a "fat" card. I would definitely have liked to see have seen more bankswitched cards though.
Nah. Here's a pic:
(http://www.pcedev.net/sf2/pic1.jpg) That the bottom side of the PCB (that faces down). The PCB is slightly longer, but there's nothing inside or under that bubble. You can clearly see the three rom chips (512k, 1024k, and 1024k, and the mapper which is the round blob). Just like the Arcade Card Duo, and that mapper is way more complex than this - still the same size (the round glop-top).
The SuperCD ram was too little to handle a SF2 port (it needed to be at least 512k), and the arcade card wasn't finished yet (started development in 1992), so they released it on Hucard. Kind of a last huraah sort of thing.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 16, 2016, 12:10:12 PM
Most CD games are comparable in content size to Sega and Nintendo carts. The fact that you're using 4 meg cards as an example us once again exposing your true intention of taking a round about way to "prove" that CD games couldn't be done on stock hardware. SFC got 48 meg games + add-on hardware compression. The Legend of Xanadu II would be smaller than 48 megs if you dropped the few redbook tracks and streaming voice acting. Even if you kept all of the sound samples in as non-adpcm channel samples. The chip tunes still sound great. Dracula X is a <16 meg game without the crappy cinemas.
The SFC got precisely 2 48Mb(it) games, and 48Mb(its) is 6MB(ytes).
I've read that Star Ocean packs 13MB of graphics into 4MB, leaving 2MB for code and audio.
Xanadu 1 has approx 6MB of compressed files, plus 0.1MB code, plus 15MB of ADPCM, plus 527MB of CD audio.
Xanadu 2 has approx 9MB of compressed files, plus 0.1MB code, plus 1MB of ADPCM, plus 553MB of CD audio.
The software compression in the Xanadu games get approx 2.1-2.5x compression, and the hardware compression in Star Ocean gets approx 3.2x compression.
If you want to compare Star Ocean's 13MB graphics in 4MB, then Xanadu 2's 9MB of files decompress into 23MB of data (which mixes code and graphics).
The thing to me isn't that the basic size of the graphics is or isn't comparable, it's that from a developers POV, on the CD I can afford to do whatever I wish to do, and the cost-of-goods for the game isn't going to increase.
Cartridges cost a lot of money to make, and bumping up from one size to another could totally change the financial projections for the game.
CDs are cheap to make, and I can get my 59MB of uncompressed Xanadu 1 voice overs, plus 527MB of CD audio voice overs and music, and I can make the player's experience more immersive.
So I've got to both agree and disagree with folks ... while the basic gameplay isn't going to be really any different if I'm limited to a HuCard ... it's all the extra details that enhance the "experience" that developers could deliver when the CD medium freed them from worrying about cartridge sizes that makes the most difference to me.
That's why the PC Engine is so special. It's the very first time that developers could afford to deliver that kind of enhanced experience.
It's still the same darned machine that's delivering the experience, it's just the medium of the game's delivery that makes the CD an affordable way to manufacture/distribute that game.
This is something I've talked about for as long as I've been online. The actual technical differences and potential of what could be practically done and make good business sense for various formats and various consoles is quite a bit different from how it actually manifested. What made early CD games and the PC Engine library in general so special is that developers just happened to look at game development differently and with so much more variety of approaches.
SNES games tend to suffer from what I've called "cart syndrome" in the past, but it's just so much more noticeable and problematic in SNES games specifically. Too often assets are tiled poorly, excessively mirrored and painfully reused. A different balance could have been struck to achieve much less uncomfortably feeling aesthetics. Like designing the assets better for tiling and mirroring first. I've heard stories of how difficult it was developing under the shadow of Nintendo and how you had to send your samples to them to be converted and when you finally got them back after too long of a time, the results were random and you just had to base the size of the rest of the game around them. Looking at the extremes developers took to reduce sample space (speeding up and removing vowels), it really seems like the burden of all sample-based sound combined with pricey carts and the whole official Nintendo process had a heavy influence on the mindset of SNES game design.
It stands out most because of different Genesis cart games tend to be. Comparably sized games look and feel more like CD, computer or arcade games. By this I mean how fluid assets flow together and much less obviously repetitive they are, regardless of cart size.
But CD games cover the entire spectrum of how one might approach balancing assets within a set space. They're more like Japanese computer games up till that time, but still go off in different directions because of more bottlenecked segments, but unlimited potential quantity of superfluous sequences. Legend of Xanadu II has lots of superfluous elements that most people don't notice* and the redundancies would bring things down in size quite a bit. A HuCard version ported from the actual game we got could be extremely faithful with minor alterations, but I agree that without the atmosphere of PCE CD development, neither of those two versions would have wound up being made. But it doesn't matter how things turned out in an alternate reality because PCE CD games are real PCE games and we really have them, regardless of what collectors and console war enthusiasts say.
*The PCE/MD/SFC screenshot comparison thread revealed how much people miss extra details and take the SNES approach for granted. We continue to have people matter of factly say that Parodius Da! for SNES has everything in the PCE version, only better graphics and extra stages. But we've seen how much more animation and extra assets the PC Engine version has. The same has happened with so many games when we take a closer look.
If you need some money to buy a Duo, sell the TG-16 along with some of that Atari garbage.
Or just go back in time a week and buy a Duo instead of Soldier Blade.
HuCards are so much more expensive compared to CD games today that the logic of "price of entry" making CD games too expensive and therefore a separate console, just makes it impossible to take any of someone's arguments seriously.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: crazydean on June 16, 2016, 12:32:57 PM
While we're on the subject of systems and their CD add-ons, does anyone know how the Jaguar CD relates to its base?
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SamIAm on June 16, 2016, 12:33:59 PM
Most CD games are comparable in content size to Sega and Nintendo carts. The fact that you're using 4 meg cards as an example us once again exposing your true intention of taking a round about way to "prove" that CD games couldn't be done on stock hardware. SFC got 48 meg games + add-on hardware compression. The Legend of Xanadu II would be smaller than 48 megs if you dropped the few redbook tracks and streaming voice acting. Even if you kept all of the sound samples in as non-adpcm channel samples. The chip tunes still sound great. Dracula X is a <16 meg game without the crappy cinemas.
I am honestly stunned that I am reading this from you of all people. It is tantamount to saying that the things made possible on the PC Engine by a CD drive are actually superfluous.
This means that all those CD RPGs could have been every bit as good on the Super Famicom.
Quote
Sam, my friend, you're really hung-up on the cost of the CD-ROM2 add-on when it came out. :wink:
Yeah, I do think the price matters, especially for the vast majority of gamers at the time i.e. kids. It's one valid perspective on the situation.
It's the old "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck."
You pay 25,000 yen, get a Super Famicom, you can now play a large library of Super Famicom cartridges, when you play them you're playing Super Famicom. You pay 25,000 yen, get a PC Engine, you can now play a large library of PC Engine cards, when you play them you're playing PC Engine. You pay 50,000 yen, get a Super CD, you can now play a large library of Super CDs, when you play them you're playing...Super CD?
*WHAP!*
Forgive me, sensei! I should have known that since it plugs into my PC Engine, I am still playing PC Engine. :cry:
This, by the way, is why I don't think more moderately priced peripherals that only work with a few games and usually come with them anyway cause anything remotely like the bedrock fracture that the PCE CD system did.
If NEC/Hudson had been clear with their vision (and you know after the SuperGrafx/Power Console that those guys were half out of their minds), they would have at least had the sense to either call the Hucard system "Core Grafx" from the beginning and the brand umbrella "PC Engine" or stick with "PC Engine" from the beginning and call the whole thing "HE System".
Actually, HE System is the most logical name for everything. It's not like they never used it, either. How come we don't call it that? The warning on the first track of every Japanese CD game says "This is an HE System CD-ROM disc".
That's it, elmer. You and I are translating Xanadu 1 and 2 for HE System.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 16, 2016, 02:12:56 PM
Nothing inside the SFII bubble? That is news to me. I thought the bankswitch logic chip was too big for a glop top so they needed a "fat" card. I would definitely have liked to see have seen more bankswitched cards though.
Nah. Here's a pic:
(http://www.pcedev.net/sf2/pic1.jpg) That the bottom side of the PCB (that faces down). The PCB is slightly longer, but there's nothing inside or under that bubble. You can clearly see the three rom chips (512k, 1024k, and 1024k, and the mapper which is the round blob). Just like the Arcade Card Duo, and that mapper is way more complex than this - still the same size (the round glop-top).
The SuperCD ram was too little to handle a SF2 port (it needed to be at least 512k), and the arcade card wasn't finished yet (started development in 1992), so they released it on Hucard. Kind of a last huraah sort of thing.
So we basically only got this wonderful Hucard gem based on a technicality. It seems like it must have been a very good seller, as the price was not high for a CIC despite being extremely popular with collectors.
Also the bankswitching works with the Everdrive v1 which presumably doesn't have extra RAM in it. How can the SFII ROM function on Everdrive if it needed 512kbytes of RAM to work on CDROM? Or are all those needed assets handled by bank-switching? The SFII ROM is 2.5Mbytes so I'm guessing it has the capability to swap out four 512kbyte banks worth of assets on the upper ROM while leaving the other 512kbyte program bank in a fixed location on the lower ROM. This all fits conveniently within the 1mbyte footprint allotted by the card bus.
This is something I've talked about for as long as I've been online. The actual technical differences and potential of what could be practically done and make good business sense for various formats and various consoles is quite a bit different from how it actually manifested. What made early CD games and the PC Engine library in general so special is that developers just happened to look at game development differently and with so much more variety of approaches.
Nice writeup on the pros and cons of asset reuse. I was watching a youtube longplay of Gates of Thunder, and I noticed they seriously went all out on the intro scenes. Normally with limited storage it is the gameplay that counts so all efforts are focused there first. Compared to most Hucard games, the intros were very short or only consisted of a static or briefly animated title screen combined with short gameplay segments on the demo loop.
If you need some money to buy a Duo, sell the TG-16 along with some of that Atari garbage.
Or just go back in time a week and buy a Duo instead of Soldier Blade.
HuCards are so much more expensive compared to CD games today that the logic of "price of entry" making CD games too expensive and therefore a separate console, just makes it impossible to take any of someone's arguments seriously.
LOL on the Soldier Blade. I ultimately got Super Star Soldier as well (imported the Japanese version) and SSS seems to be a closer spiritual sequel to Blazing Lazers / Gunhed compared to Soldier Blade anyway. Since it didn't come with a case originally, I settled for a loose card + sleeve.
And is it just me or does anyone else find it odd that US Soldier Blade appears to be going for cheaper than it's Japanese counterpart? That flies in the face of all logic.
Given the TG-16 upward pricing trend, if I decide I don't want SB anymore, I could easily wait a few months and flip it. The inflation is getting stupid. Sometimes it's a whole "buy now while you still can or forever hold your peace" type thing. Still kicking myself for letting Neutopia slip away. ](*,)
Finally, it's not necessarily the money issue although Turbo/PCe collecting is kind of hurt on the wallet a bit. It's more an issue of "Am I ready to add/invest a new console/platform to my collection? Someday I will probably get that Japanese Duo or IFU Breifcase, but as I said, my plate is full.
Also Atari is not "garbage." :P
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Bonknuts on June 16, 2016, 02:43:16 PM
So we basically only got this wonderful Hucard gem based on a technicality. It seems like it must have been a very good seller, as the price was not high for a CIC despite being extremely popular with collectors.
Also the bankswitching works with the Everdrive v1 which presumably doesn't have extra RAM in it. How can the SFII ROM function on Everdrive if it needed 512kbytes of RAM to work on CDROM? Or are all those needed assets handled by bank-switching? The SFII ROM is 2.5Mbytes so I'm guessing it has the capability to swap out four 512kbyte banks worth of assets on the upper ROM while leaving the other 512kbyte program bank in a fixed location on the lower ROM. This all fits conveniently within the 1mbyte footprint allotted by the card bus.
SF2 on PCE doesn't use any extra ram. It's just the 8k ram of the stock system. I said if SF2 were to be made for the PCE CD, it would need at least 512k of ram, which is above and beyond the 256k of SuperCD.
The PCE has a total of 2megabyte (16megabit) address range, but the upper 1megabyte range is reserved for addons. Though technically there at least 900k linear addressing available as open bus space that no addon every used, so 14-15megabit is the largest rom the PCE can officially handle without a mapper (but would need a chip for translating the address range - bank $88 to bank $EF).
So the lower 1megabyte is used for hucard stuffs. SF2 splits this into lower 512k (fixed rom bank) and upper 512k (you map in one of four 512k sections of the upper 2megabyte rom; the lower cannot mapped or accessed this way). It's the simplest mapper ever. Game logic and sound samples are in the first fixed 512k bank, while the rest of the uncompressed sprite assets for the characters are in the mappable banks. It's right up there with the simplest NES mappers every used.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 16, 2016, 02:59:23 PM
When I play Gate Of Thunder, I'm not playing on PC Engine.
OK...
Heh. Did you know Metal Combat isn't really a SNES game?
Yes, it is. I also have the bazooka shaped Super Scope for what it's worth, if that's what you're getting at. I have a handful of titles for it. Yoshi's Island is a nice diversion.
A "diversion"? Who are you, Thurston Howel III?
Yeeeeeazzzzzz, well I dabbled in Carnage Heart before a lark with Street Fighter III: Third Strike. Then I spend a moment or two with Romance of Three Kingdoms. It's all a blur in my life of high leasure. Huh haaaa! Yezzzzzz...
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 16, 2016, 03:20:59 PM
When I play Gate Of Thunder, I'm not playing on PC Engine.
OK...
Heh. Did you know Metal Combat isn't really a SNES game?
Yes, it is. I also have the bazooka shaped Super Scope for what it's worth, if that's what you're getting at. I have a handful of titles for it. Yoshi's Island is a nice diversion.
A "diversion"? Who are you, Thurston Howel III?
Yeeeeeazzzzzz, well I dabbled in Carnage Heart before a lark with Street Fighter III: Third Strike. Then I spend a moment or two with Romance of Three Kingdoms. It's all a blur in my life of high leasure. Huh haaaa! Yezzzzzz...
I meant Yoshi's Safari, not Island. :-#
It's a nice change in pace from all those "blast shit up before it blasts you" type early FPS combat games. Some of the games that could have really benefited from Super Scope use actually don't work with it. Like the Wikipedia article quoted Revolution X as Super Scope compatible. It isn't.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: TheOldMan on June 16, 2016, 05:32:31 PM
Quote
Though technically there at least 900k linear addressing available as open bus space that no addon every used.
So I -could- map in another 512K chip without bus conflicts? Hmm, maybe I should learn to program a cpld (or whatever) chip....
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SamIAm on June 16, 2016, 10:07:58 PM
In the interest of fairness, I'll share a couple of things I've just read on the PC Engine's Japanese wikipedia page.
HE-SYSTEM is a "standard" (規格), and the logo is used for licensing purposes. In other words, it seems like pure legal branding and not like a real title for anything.
Also, the article talks about the Core Concept (コア構想), an official term that I know I've seen elsewhere. The idea, as we all basically know already, was to have one heart, or one driving "engine" at the center of a variety of peripherals including different media formats.
Yes, from day one, that meant the CD system.
You know, I can come out of this with a renewed appreciation and deeper understanding of Hudson's inspiration, creative process and marketing, including their attempt to expand the very definition of what a console could be into a new direction. Mentally, I have revised the assessment I made in the very first sentences of my very first post in this argument from "PCE and CD = One system? Not from a user's perspective." to "PCE and CD = One system? Not necessarily from a user's perspective."
OTOH, I still stand firm that Hudson's crazy dreaming, for all the wonderful things it gave us, did not always materialize into reality in quite the way they first saw it. Their visions were not completely consistent and went in a lot of directions at once. Their naming alone couldn't have been that good, or else I wouldn't have to keep typing "the Hucard system" or "the base PCE" or whatever just to make sure you all know I'm talking about that one square-shaped white-or-grey thing that only plays Hucards.
If you want to think of the base-PCE-Hucard system, the SuperGrafx, the CD-ROM2, the Super System Card 3.0, the Duo and the Arcade Card as all fitting into one tight PC Engine concept, I wouldn't tell you you're wrong. Even I like to shorthand a lot of things as "PCE" when I'm typing up a message. However, if you feel that in reality, the systems and libraries naturally separate out into at least two very distinctive groups, Hucard and CD, and if you feel that there seems to be an honesty and simplicity from a user perspective to thinking of things on these terms...well, I'd agree with you.
That goes whether you're a western gamer in 2016 or a Japanese gamer in the late 80s/early 90s thinking to yourself "57,300 yen? 1000x storage capacity? Separate and exclusive game library? Pop idols and anime girls galore? Peripheral my ass; this CD thing's a console of its own!"
(How much do you want to bet that if Sony unveiled $1000 peripheral for the PS4 that fractured it this much, people would lose their minds and refuse to accept it as just a peripheral?)
Also, if you want to tell me that the CD system, for all it costs and for all it provides, is ultimately no different from a mouse or a lightgun and/or does nothing for software but make it a little higher fidelity or whatever, I reserve the right to suspect you've been smoking whatever Hudson was when they came up with the Power Console.
Speaking of which, can-of-worms time: is the SuperGrafx really a PC Engine, too, or was it a separate console? Japanese doesn't have plurals, so I can't tell you whether it was supposed to be Core Concept or Cores Concept. Call me crazy, but I suspect it was supposed to be the former initially.
Anyway, in conclusion, rather than inducting a newbie by telling him to think of the PC Engine as being more like 1.5-ish systems and having at least two different libraries, I think I'll just start by telling him it's all a goddamn mess and he better brace himself.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 16, 2016, 10:50:02 PM
Which all goes back to the "onion layers" side of things I mentioned earlier. Turbo/PCe collective libraries and hardware configurations are like a giant onion.
Software:[ul][li]Japanese Hucard[/li][li]US Hucard[/li][li]Supergrafx[/li][li]CDROM[/li][li]Super/CD2[/li][li]CD3[/li][li]Arcade[/li][/ul] Hardware:[ul][li]PCe/Coregrafx[/li][li]PCe/Coregrafx + Tennokoe[/li][li]Turbografx[/li][li]Turbografx + Booster Plus[/li][li]Supergrafx[/li][li]PCe/Coregrafx + IFU "Briefcase"[/li][li]Turbografx + Base + CDROM[/li][li]PCe/Coregrafx + piggyback CDROM[/li][li]Supergrafx + piggyback CDROM[/li][li]PCe Duo[/li][li]PCe Duo R[/li][li]Turbo Duo[/li][/ul] Then there are different classes of system cards needed to play the same CD games based on whether your CD unit has the extra RAM or not. The sheer variety of hardware NEC put out actually makes the Genesis/Megadrive revisions and addons look good by comparison:
Software: [ul][li]SMS[/li][li]Genesis/MD[/li][li]SegaCD[/li][li]32X[/li][li]32X CD[/li][/ul] Hardware: [ul][li]Genesis/MD Model 1[/li][li]Genesis/MD Model 2[/li][li]+ Power Base Converter (model 1)[/li][li]+ Power Base Converter (model 2 - rare)[/li][li]+ SegaCD Model 1[/li][li]+ SegaCD Model 2[/li][li]CDX[/li][li]+ 32X[/li][li]+ SegaCD + 32X[/li][li]Genesis Model 3 (does not work with any add-ons)[/li][/ul] Now look at how clean Nintendo looked by comparison:
Software: [ul][li]SNES/SFC[/li][/ul] Hardware: [ul][li]SNES/SFC[/li][li]SNES/SFC Mini[/li][li]Super Game Boy :D[/li][/ul] All SNES systems played all SNES games (regardless of what extra bits the developers crammed in the carts). Simple and elegant. Almost kinda glad the Sony/Phillips CD addon thingy failed... :roll:
@SamIAm: Good writeup on the Japanese thingy. It seems that Sony and Microsoft are both hedging their bets on incremental "version 1.5" upgrades to their consoles. Well it worked with New 3DS at least. But MS/Sony just claim they want to provide a smoother gameplay experience with their games. But developers are going to push their luck resulting in games poorly optimized for the "stock" console, or flat out not run, and then you have the fragmented userbase issue. They should take a look at the history of 4th gen addons to see why it's a bad idea.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SamIAm on June 17, 2016, 12:06:23 AM
All SNES systems played all SNES games (regardless of what extra bits the developers crammed in the carts). Simple and elegant. Almost kinda glad the Sony/Phillips CD addon thingy failed... :roll:
@SamIAm: Good writeup on the Japanese thingy. It seems that Sony and Microsoft are both hedging their bets on incremental "version 1.5" upgrades to their consoles. Well it worked with New 3DS at least. But MS/Sony just claim they want to provide a smoother gameplay experience with their games. But developers are going to push their luck resulting in games poorly optimized for the "stock" console, or flat out not run, and then you have the fragmented userbase issue. They should take a look at the history of 4th gen addons to see why it's a bad idea.
I love the elegance of the console concept, too, and I think it's a pity that it seems in danger of breaking down.
However, I'm really glad that the PCE got the CD system. If it hadn't, I think the story would have mostly ended sometime in 1992 even in Japan, and who knows if there really would have been a successor system in that case. But instead, we got a lot of years of games that were like nothing else. They had truly unbelievable music, and they made really fascinating (if occasionally clumsy) attempts at adding lavish cutscenes and voice acting to all kinds of genres to make the experiences into something higher. At times, the sheer quantity of content, even in the dumb fan-service digital comic games from later on, was simply immense.
I hope you get one someday. :D
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: elmer on June 17, 2016, 04:05:25 AM
How much do you want to bet that if Sony unveiled $1000 peripheral for the PS4 that fractured it this much, people would lose their minds and refuse to accept it as just a peripheral?
You mean like a $399 PlayStation VR that's really going to need you to upgrade your PlayStation 4 to the new 4.5 Neo model in order to run it properly? :-k
No, you're right. Something like that could never happen these days! :wink:
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Necromancer on June 17, 2016, 04:26:23 AM
Now look at how clean Nintendo looked by comparison:
Software: Japanese Cartridge US Cartridge Data Packs Nintendo Power
/SFC
Hardware: SFC SNES SFC w/ S-Video SNES w/ S-Video SFC Mini SNES Mini Satellaview SuFami Turbo (third party but licensed and required to play certain titles)
<< fixed >>
It's not so clean when made more consistent with how you did the PCE's lists and with missing stuff added.
Your lists are terribly inconsistent and omit a lot of stuff. Why count the SFC/SNES and SFC/SNES mini, the three MD/Genny models, and the Duos as separate and distinct models but not the PCE, CoreGrafx, and CoreGrafx II; and why are you only counting the most obvious hardware revisions in the first place? There's several hardware revisions within the main model designations (often internal only) that're just as important to the end user.... or rather unimportant. And where's the Duo-RX LaserActive, LT, GT, TurboExpress, Shuttle, Teradrive, Nomad, MegaJet, WonderMega, WonderMega 2, Multi-Mega, Firecore, Amstrad Mega PC, or the Aiwa Mega-CD thingy?
TL;DR - I don't know if it's pro-Nintendo bias, more trolling, or if he's just plain uninformed, but stardust really doesn't know what the f*ck he's talking about.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: TheOldMan on June 17, 2016, 05:53:27 AM
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Sure, just take a look at the map, there's plenty of space. Banks $A0-$DF for instance.
I knew the space was there, but I'm not an electronics guy so I wasn't sure if the banks were mirrored or not. I'd like to avoid any bus conflict, and it's nice to know they aren't active on the bus.
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But I don't know why you would intrude on that area when you could just add a 2nd-level of banking like on the Street Fighter II card.
Because theres an easier way than creating a new mapper on a cpld :)
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 17, 2016, 09:26:17 AM
What's this? There's only three official CD formats (CD-ROM2, Super CD-ROM2, and Arcade CD-ROM2), so maybe you meant the GE games?
TL;DR - I don't know if it's pro-Nintendo bias, more trolling, or if he's just plain uninformed, but stardust really doesn't know what the f*ck he's talking about.
Well there are three system cards plus the arcade Pro so I assumed each one played a different class of CD games, with the highest class playing all of them.
Also how the heck is an SNES with Svideo cable a separate system? All SNES systems have Svideo out built in. There are no peripherals that change the system in a fundamental way that allows you to play new games you can't otherwise on a stock system. The lone exception is the Super Game Boy.
Sure the Everdrive may not play chipped games, but the carts simply work. You don't have to buy additional hardware if you have the game. My SNES, Genesis, and Turbografx are all stock base model. So I got the import adapter for Turbografx and cut tabs on the SNES for playing imports. The Genesis/MD library trumps the CD/32X add-on libraries in every way. In fact they were still making Genesis games long after the addons were discontinued.
Had the Duo come out in the late 80s, then there would be no issue with the library. It would be like the SMS with both cards and carts. Fact is, there is library fragmentation, therefore they aren't the same. Nobody refers to FDS disks as Famicom games, even though the Famicom had the equivalent of the Duo with the Twin system. Nobody refers to SegaCD as Genesis/Megadrive games even though Sega made their own Duo equivalent with the CDX.
Supergrafx is not branded as a PC Engine. The only reason Hucards and CDs are considered part of the same library is that they lack distinctive branding, which is purely a marketing decision. Hudson/NEC was still cranking out Hucard games in the US through 1993 and in Japan through 1994. And the late release Hucard games even had Duo branding on the packagining, at least in the US.
Furthermore, before anyone brings up enhancements like the N64 RAM expansion, it doesn't actually change the cart interface. The games that require it pluginto the same interface. No "piggyback" addons needed for Zelda MM, DK64, or Perfect Dark. The 64DD, however, like the FDS, is it's own system.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 17, 2016, 09:38:41 AM
How much do you want to bet that if Sony unveiled $1000 peripheral for the PS4 that fractured it this much, people would lose their minds and refuse to accept it as just a peripheral?
You mean like a $399 PlayStation VR that's really going to need you to upgrade your PlayStation 4 to the new 4.5 Neo model in order to run it properly? :-k
No, you're right. Something like that could never happen these days! :wink:
VR will always be niche item and fail to penetrate the mass market. Just look at Virtual Boy.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: deubeul on June 17, 2016, 09:42:26 AM
Furthermore, before anyone brings up enhancements like the N64 RAM expansion, it doesn't actually change the cart interface. The games that require it pluginto the same interface.
And that's different from the PCE's system cards how exactly?
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: mickcris on June 17, 2016, 10:23:03 AM
the snes mini actually does not have svideo out of the box, only composite.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: wildfruit on June 17, 2016, 11:35:46 AM
You mean like a $399 PlayStation VR that's really going to need you to upgrade your PlayStation 4 to the new 4.5 Neo model in order to run it properly? :-k
No, you're right. Something like that could never happen these days! :wink:
A) That still doesn't fracture it that much. The games are going to be compatible. Supposedly, one disc will play on your PS4 or your PS4.5 in 4K or VR, unless I am missing something.
B) We'll just see where this goes. Everyone is already predicting a big split if the compatibility thing doesn't work out. I didn't have to search long at all to find this comment.
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Tierborn Apr 1 2016 9AM
[This] is the PS5 .. dont like the marketing guys tell you different.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 17, 2016, 02:54:26 PM
StarDust4Ever: So you're never going to own an actual PCE CD unit, right?
I never said that. It's just not in the cards at this time.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SamIAm on June 17, 2016, 03:45:03 PM
I encourage you all to take a good look at some of the discussions going on around the internet about the PS4.5. The amount of "This is bullshit!" sentiment is through the roof.
People are being skeptical consumers. They're acting defensively and looking out for crazy schemes, and even PS4 gamers are not being loyal or reverent to Sony.
Contrast this with our attitude toward NEC and Hudson. We love them. We love them more than anyone in the English speaking world, and we make only the best assumptions. All is in the past, and all is forgiven.
If Hudson put the PC Engine logo on the SuperGrafx, then of course it's a PC Engine. It's Hudson's artistic technological vision. It's not a duck wearing a nametag that says "Cat".
Take a step back. From a consumer standpoint, the way Hudson carried out the Core Concept plan is kind of bullshit. One could say that by not calling the white-base-Hucard system a "Core", but rather marketing it as something whole when this big game-changing CD attachment was in the works from the beginning, Hudson was being dishonest. They didn't want people to be put off from buying the white-base system because it seemed like it might not be the focus of support. That's exactly why Sony is keeping a "4" in this new system of theirs.
We don't assume this kind of scheming with NEC and Hudson. Who knows? Maybe the hardware guys were just dreaming big, and the execs did what they thought they had to do to roll with it. Anyway, a lot of decisions were made solely to get your money.
I hope Japanese gamers were looking at the CD system and the SuperGrafx (the latter being pure insanity) with the same skepticism that gamers are today when they're looking at the PS4.5. Consumers should be smart. To quote George Carlin, whoever coined the phrase "Let the buyer beware" was probably bleeding from the a$$hole (Pro-click).
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 17, 2016, 04:24:19 PM
Obviously the marketplace is not today what it was in the early 90s. Sony / Microsoft are trying desperately to 1up each other. People are jumping ship off the console bandwagon for mobile and Steam. Looking at the pricetag of these things, it's not just more beefier hardware but both companies coming out with their VR gear. Adjusted for inflation the cost of a VR unit plus the "v1.5" consoles is comparable to the CD attachment thingy from Hudson.
The intermittent hardware revision is probably more akin to the Supergrafx and the VR headsets more like the CD. The whole setup will ultimately cost $1000 or so, not far off from the $399 CD modules. A lot of customers are sticking with current hardware playing the wait and see game, and a lot of customers will upgrade and buy whatever comes out.
I think it's very real that MS/Sony are telling the truth initially that games will run on older hardware with lesser effects, resolution, framerate, polys, what have you. But as developers design their soft for the future platforms, gamers who refused to upgrade will eventually get a half baked experience that barely runs. For instance Xenoblade Chronicles and SNES VC games only work on New 3DS. Some fans may get butthurt over this or it may help generate new hardware sales.
Fact of the matter remains the CD PCe games only worked with the expensive add-ons. It wasn't some optional upgrade like the PS4/Xbone ".5" iterations. I would imagine those folks who didn't pony up for the CD unit ultimately got the much cheaper Super Famicom, however Hudson/NEC did cater to those who chose not to upgrade with the occasional late release Hucard game, some of which were fantastic. Bomberman '93 and '94, Bonk 3, Magical Chase, etc...
It will be interesting to see if VR takes off in a big way or becomes a failed or niche product like 3D TV. MS and Sony both seem desperate to expand their markets, and Nintendo just being Nintendo ignoring what their competition is doing.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: TheOldMan on June 17, 2016, 04:36:50 PM
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No, he was just joking. There's no such thing as a ROMRAM card.
That's news to me. I just haven't figured out what to do with 512K RAM.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Punch on June 17, 2016, 07:10:13 PM
*whispers* 3d coprocessor...
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 17, 2016, 08:22:22 PM
There is no relationship to the way game systems were sold in the 80s and now.
Now people choosing a game system are motivated primally by one thing; the want to buy whichever system will eventually "win" the console war. Fear of being the kind of loser that got f*cked by the Dreamcast is what guides them.
Back then a lot of shit we are sick of now had yet to hit a wall. People were excited by new technology, not "apps" but shit that did stuff undreamed of months before. Walkmans were shrinking, Laserdisc was in full swing. Sony had their ES line of stereo gear. It was like how people are with cell phones now only with everything. Computers, home video, synthesizers, cars...digital watches. All that shit was changing fast and it was very exciting.
Now people want stability more than anything and while they are addicted enough to pay any price they are on the whole extremely cheap these days. So to pull a SuperGrafx would be total bullshit. The original SuperGrafx would have been just as much of a f*cking, you are right, but it's not just loyalty and rose tinted glasses. People really didn't care that much about it back then, not like now anyway. The PCE fans are people who did Betamax and projector TVs and always used Metal type cassettes. These people are proud of inconvinence, like how guys who are into Jeeps mainly just talk about all the shit they break on them. It proves your love. PlayStation 5 fans are the kind of people who have motion smoothing turned on on their TVs and bitch when Netflix raised its price $2. Passive consumer drones, pretty much. They don't need to be hardcore because there are a billion of them.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: wilykat on June 17, 2016, 10:38:14 PM
Just a minor nitpick with Genesis stuff: you can't use 32x and Power Base Converter at the same time. With PCE, you could use any consoles with any CD and any peripheral and all games* would work. Supergrafx even have a switch for some PCE game that might not like extra hardware.
*CD games still depend on certain system version, can't run Arcade game on a 3.0 card for example.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: elmer on June 18, 2016, 11:33:35 AM
In the interest of fairness, I'll share a couple of things I've just read on the PC Engine's Japanese wikipedia page. ... Also, the article talks about the Core Concept (コア構想), an official term that I know I've seen elsewhere. The idea, as we all basically know already, was to have one heart, or one driving "engine" at the center of a variety of peripherals including different media formats.
Yes, from day one, that meant the CD system. ... If you want to think of the base-PCE-Hucard system, the SuperGrafx, the CD-ROM2, the Super System Card 3.0, the Duo and the Arcade Card as all fitting into one tight PC Engine concept, I wouldn't tell you you're wrong. Even I like to shorthand a lot of things as "PCE" when I'm typing up a message. However, if you feel that in reality, the systems and libraries naturally separate out into at least two very distinctive groups, Hucard and CD, and if you feel that there seems to be an honesty and simplicity from a user perspective to thinking of things on these terms...well, I'd agree with you.
That goes whether you're a western gamer in 2016 or a Japanese gamer in the late 80s/early 90s thinking to yourself "57,300 yen? 1000x storage capacity? Separate and exclusive game library? Pop idols and anime girls galore? Peripheral my ass; this CD thing's a console of its own!"
It's an "expandable" system ... with different levels of expansion, each providing more capabilities, and with each level having games that support those expanded capabilities.
That wasn't a hugely strange concept for a buyer to understand back in the 1980s.
Heck ... it shouldn't exactly be that strange of an idea to anyone that's ever played an RPG! :wink:
You buy the base system, and then you just add on more and more bits as your desire and finances allow.
You're hung up on the whole "a console mustn't change or be expanded" mindset, probably because your personal memories of games really start at a time when the whole market, and marketing had stratified into distinct segments.
The early to late 1980's were the Wild West of home computer and videogame development. Anything could happen as people and companies experimented to see what could work, both technologically, and in terms of consumer acceptance.
Back then, a PC was just a Personal Computer, IBM hadn't wiped everyone else off the map.
It was an exciting time. 8)
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Speaking of which, can-of-worms time: is the SuperGrafx really a PC Engine, too, or was it a separate console?
Can it play all the existing Core PC Engine games? Yes.
Can you plug it into all the existing Core PC Engine perihperals? Yes.
What is it internally? A PC Engine with an extra VDC controller.
So ... it's just another member of the expanable PC Engine system.
I can certainly accept the idea that people can/should consider the games for the diffent expansions as belonging to different "groups", but they're still part of the same "System".
Perhaps we're just getting hung up on semantics again.
Perhaps you'd be happier if I said "Concept" instead of "System"?
But that's not really the right use of language ... a Concept is a just an idea, but a System applies both to an idea, and to a realization of that idea.
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Anyway, in conclusion, rather than inducting a newbie by telling him to think of the PC Engine as being more like 1.5-ish systems and having at least two different libraries, I think I'll just start by telling him it's all a goddamn mess and he better brace himself.
I think it's pretty simple.
You can buy in at various levels of capability, and you can expand your original purchase.
That applies to the CD, the Super System Card, and the Arcade Card.
I love the elegance of the console concept, too, and I think it's a pity that it seems in danger of breaking down.
Like any industry, everything has matured now, the excitement and unknowns have gone away, and people have set expectations of how things should work and be marketed.
From what I see, the "console" concept is still alive ... in the iPhone and Android worlds.
The idea of, and need for, dedicated videogame consoles has pretty much passed away.
20 years ago, consoles had superior game-playing hardware to personal computers.
That's not been the case for a while.
And now Personal Computers themselves are morphing from being productivity devices on desks, into being mobile entertainment/consumption devices with integrated telephones.
From what I can, most consumers are exceedingly happy with that, because they didn't have the time or interest in being slaves to keeping their computers maintained and up-to-date.
A) That still doesn't fracture it that much. The games are going to be compatible. Supposedly, one disc will play on your PS4 or your PS4.5 in 4K or VR, unless I am missing something.
I think that you're overlooking the commercial realities of development.
It's poor economics to target such different resolutions/capabilities ... which means that what-will-happen is what usually happens in those cases.
You'll get simple up-rezzing tricks to make things look better on the new version, and it'll all be a bit of a disappointment to the people that pay extra for the new versions.
The whole VR thing has so many practical limitations at the moment, that I fully expect it to be just like all the 3D-TV hype of a few years ago.
I could be wrong ... but I certainly won't be an early-adopter.
Take a step back. From a consumer standpoint, the way Hudson carried out the Core Concept plan is kind of bullshit. One could say that by not calling the white-base-Hucard system a "Core", but rather marketing it as something whole when this big game-changing CD attachment was in the works from the beginning, Hudson was being dishonest. They didn't want people to be put off from buying the white-base system because it seemed like it might not be the focus of support.
Errrr ... what???
AFAIK Hudson supported the original PC Engine with HuCard games for as long as it was economically possible to do so, and well passed the time that most consumers had already abandoned them.
CD games started out as an "extra" and remained that way until the SFC/SNES blew the entire HuCard market out of the water in 1991 ... and then Hudson still kept on releasing HuCards.
As the HuCard market dried up, they had the SuperCDROM available as an upgrade for anyone with a core PC Engine that wanted to stay with them and enjoy the experience of CD games.
I don't see any dishonesty, quite the opposite.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: ccovell on June 18, 2016, 12:01:13 PM
Some food for thought: When the PCE had its big announcement in the summer of 1987, going on sale that October, the following expansions were also announced and "pictured": CD-ROM, LCD TV attachment, keyboard, computer connectivity, modem. (http://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/1980s/PCEAnnP1sm.jpg)
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 18, 2016, 12:01:27 PM
To avoid kicking a dead horse regarding Hucard Vs CD, there's still a whole lot to love in the PC Engine/Turbografx library if you're a SHMUP fan. I found this supposedly complete list: http://archives.tg-16.com/complete_list_of_tg16_pce_shooters.htm of PCe shooters, and there's a good deal more of them in Hucard format than CD. True a few epic games, such as Lords/Gate of Thunder, Star Parodier, hell even Cho Aniki as well as others, are only available on CDROM, and a few of the Hueys might be garbage, or barely fit in the SHMUP genre if at all, but there seems to be a lot to love available on Hucard, SHMUP or otherwise, and Hudson did continue to release games on Hucard for as long as the Duo was in production, both in Japan and US. Call it a fan service or what have you, but I'm glad these titles exist. I do kinda wish more bankswitched cards with Super Street Fighter style mappers existed. I guess we got lucky with that one. :P
Maybe someone makes an Everdrive-like attachment allowing the loading of disc images off the CDROM. It could probably be pulled off easily with a CLPD, FPGA, RAM, and an SD slot with support for SDHC and XC cards. RGB + AV out could be provided on the same PCB. No leaking caps or broken gear mechs to deal with...
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 18, 2016, 12:28:24 PM
Some food for thought: When the PCE had its big announcement in the summer of 1987, going on sale that October, the following expansions were also announced and "pictured": CD-ROM, LCD TV attachment, keyboard, computer connectivity, modem. (http://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/1980s/PCEAnnP1sm.jpg)
What's cool about that is they were all announced months before the PC Engine even launched and they all came out.
To avoid kicking a dead horse regarding Hucard Vs CD, there's still a whole lot to love in the PC Engine/Turbografx library if you're a SHMUP fan. I found this supposedly complete list: http://archives.tg-16.com/complete_list_of_tg16_pce_shooters.htm of PCe shooters, and there's a good deal more of them in Hucard format than CD. True a few epic games, such as Lords/Gate of Thunder, Star Parodier, hell even Cho Aniki as well as others, are only available on CDROM, and a few of the Hueys might be garbage, or barely fit in the SHMUP genre if at all, but there seems to be a lot to love available on Hucard, SHMUP or otherwise, and Hudson did continue to release games on Hucard for as long as the Duo was in production, both in Japan and US. Call it a fan service or what have you, but I'm glad these titles exist. I do kinda wish more bankswitched cards with Super Street Fighter style mappers existed. I guess we got lucky with that one. :P
Maybe someone makes an Everdrive-like attachment allowing the loading of disc images off the CDROM. It could probably be pulled off easily with a CLPD, FPGA, RAM, and an SD slot with support for SDHC and XC cards. RGB + AV out could be provided on the same PCB. No leaking caps or broken gear mechs to deal with...
There are roughly the same number of CD shooters as HuCard and more than a few "epics".
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SamIAm on June 18, 2016, 03:45:26 PM
Some food for thought: When the PCE had its big announcement in the summer of 1987, going on sale that October, the following expansions were also announced and "pictured": CD-ROM, LCD TV attachment, keyboard, computer connectivity, modem.
Interesting.
It does not actually say CD-ROM. It says CDs for background music. That is the only mention of how it will work; there is nothing about software on discs. I wonder when that info came out?
Also, the system costing 30,000 yen with one game and only coming with one controller is enough to make us go "ouch".
There is no relationship to the way game systems were sold in the 80s and now.
Now people choosing a game system are motivated primally by one thing; the want to buy whichever system will eventually "win" the console war. Fear of being the kind of loser that got f*cked by the Dreamcast is what guides them.
Back then a lot of shit we are sick of now had yet to hit a wall. People were excited by new technology, not "apps" but shit that did stuff undreamed of months before. Walkmans were shrinking, Laserdisc was in full swing. Sony had their ES line of stereo gear. It was like how people are with cell phones now only with everything. Computers, home video, synthesizers, cars...digital watches. All that shit was changing fast and it was very exciting.
Now people want stability more than anything and while they are addicted enough to pay any price they are on the whole extremely cheap these days. So to pull a SuperGrafx would be total bullshit. The original SuperGrafx would have been just as much of a f*cking, you are right, but it's not just loyalty and rose tinted glasses. People really didn't care that much about it back then, not like now anyway. The PCE fans are people who did Betamax and projector TVs and always used Metal type cassettes. These people are proud of inconvinence, like how guys who are into Jeeps mainly just talk about all the shit they break on them. It proves your love. PlayStation 5 fans are the kind of people who have motion smoothing turned on on their TVs and bitch when Netflix raised its price $2. Passive consumer drones, pretty much. They don't need to be hardcore because there are a billion of them.
My only concern in those days was where my pacifier was, but here are two things to consider.
1 - In Japan of the 1980s, a strong majority of the gamer demographic still hadn't finished high school yet, and almost nobody was over 30. Even amidst the famous economic bubble, to which we probably owe Hudson trying something like a CD attachment in the first place, most gamers didn't have the disposable income for that devil-may-care approach to picking up pricy toys.
I looked up "PC Engine memories" in Japanese. One guy said "The PC Engine was what rich kids' parents bought them after they got bored of the Famicom."
And of course, NEC wanted to get into the console business in the first place to indoctrinate kids into the NEC brand.
2 - Japanese people have always been fairly picky and savvy consumers, if not without their quirks. I've read a lot of text from the period that shows that Japanese gamers were already well aware of how software made the hardware and how important 3rd party support was. Price, of course, was always in there. With hi-fi AV equipment back then or smartphones today, the features and fashionability may have a high turnover rate, but at least they always work. In the case of gaming systems, however, I think Japanese people knew that if it didn't build up a library of software, it was worthless.
I agree, the pile-up of bodies on the battlegrounds of the console wars has had an effect. However, I don't agree that it really changed everything. The PC Engine with the CD system was quite an extravagance, and people weren't going to buy it just because it was the latest thing.
Quote
You're hung up on the whole "a console mustn't change or be expanded" mindset, probably because your personal memories of games really start at a time when the whole market, and marketing had stratified into distinct segments.
The early to late 1980's were the Wild West of home computer and videogame development. Anything could happen as people and companies experimented to see what could work, both technologically, and in terms of consumer acceptance.
Back then, a PC was just a Personal Computer, IBM hadn't wiped everyone else off the map.
It was an exciting time. 8)
Perhaps.
But I still think that the CD system looking effectively like a console of its own doesn't require an awareness of the console-concept to work.
You were a computer programmer in the 80s; your perceptions are colored, too. What if you were somebody's mom? A housewife, with a salaryman husband, and now your kid wants you to buy this dumb CD thing? He tells it's just a peripheral like the light gun for his old Famicom, but you look at the price, and you see a separate shelf at the store full of different games. When you gave him the PC Engine on his last birthday, you told him it was the only new console he could have. Now what?
Quote
CD games started out as an "extra" and remained that way until the SFC/SNES blew the entire HuCard market out of the water in 1991 ... and then Hudson still kept on releasing HuCards.
The advertisement above looks like CDs are an extra. It looks like the Hucard is going to detect a CD player and use it for BGM. A library of exclusive CD games looks like something else...and you know what I'm going to say that is. :wink:
How was all this advertised, really? I include myself when I say that we probably can't get an accurate sense of how consumers perceived the system until we see more of how it was presented.
None of the peripherals in the ad ccovell posted actually say anything about exclusive games. For all consumers know, every single game will still be playable on a base system.
Quote
Errrr ... what???
It's dishonest if Hudson didn't want people to think that the CD system was going to have exclusive games. It would be just like Sony advertising their new system as the PS4.5 while quietly acknowledging internally that it's going to get a lot of exclusive content and effectively become its own console.
The CD system as it was released probably made some consumers afraid that Hudson and their third parties were either going to spread themselves too thin, or that they were going to abandon the Hucard system early.
The latter might have been exactly the decision Hudson made in 1991. How do you think the gamer with the base PCE only felt when Hudson implied "You just need to get this 'peripheral' and you'll be fine?"
Quote
What's cool about that is they were all announced months before the PC Engine even launched and they all came out.
Well, two out of five, anyway. :wink:
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 18, 2016, 04:30:13 PM
Some food for thought: When the PCE had its big announcement in the summer of 1987, going on sale that October, the following expansions were also announced and "pictured": CD-ROM, LCD TV attachment, keyboard, computer connectivity, modem.
Interesting.
It does not actually say CD-ROM. It says CDs for background music. That is the only mention of how it will work; there is nothing about software on discs. I wonder when that info came out?
Also, the system costing 30,000 yen with one game and only coming with one controller is enough to make us go "ouch".
There is no relationship to the way game systems were sold in the 80s and now.
Now people choosing a game system are motivated primally by one thing; the want to buy whichever system will eventually "win" the console war. Fear of being the kind of loser that got f*cked by the Dreamcast is what guides them.
Back then a lot of shit we are sick of now had yet to hit a wall. People were excited by new technology, not "apps" but shit that did stuff undreamed of months before. Walkmans were shrinking, Laserdisc was in full swing. Sony had their ES line of stereo gear. It was like how people are with cell phones now only with everything. Computers, home video, synthesizers, cars...digital watches. All that shit was changing fast and it was very exciting.
Now people want stability more than anything and while they are addicted enough to pay any price they are on the whole extremely cheap these days. So to pull a SuperGrafx would be total bullshit. The original SuperGrafx would have been just as much of a f*cking, you are right, but it's not just loyalty and rose tinted glasses. People really didn't care that much about it back then, not like now anyway. The PCE fans are people who did Betamax and projector TVs and always used Metal type cassettes. These people are proud of inconvinence, like how guys who are into Jeeps mainly just talk about all the shit they break on them. It proves your love. PlayStation 5 fans are the kind of people who have motion smoothing turned on on their TVs and bitch when Netflix raised its price $2. Passive consumer drones, pretty much. They don't need to be hardcore because there are a billion of them.
My only concern in those days was where my pacifier was, but here are two things to consider.
1 - In Japan of the 1980s, a strong majority of the gamer demographic still hadn't finished high school yet, and almost nobody was over 30. Even amidst the famous economic bubble, to which we probably owe Hudson trying something like a CD attachment in the first place, most gamers didn't have the disposable income for that devil-may-care approach to picking up pricy toys.
I looked up "PC Engine memories" in Japanese. One guy said "The PC Engine was what rich kids' parents bought them after they got bored of the Famicom."
And of course, NEC wanted to get into the console business in the first place to indoctrinate kids into the NEC brand.
2 - Japanese people have always been fairly picky and savvy consumers, if not without their quirks. I've read a lot of text from the period that shows that Japanese gamers were already well aware of how software made the hardware and how important 3rd party support was. Price, of course, was always in there. With hi-fi AV equipment back then or smartphones today, the features and fashionability may have a high turnover rate, but at least they always work. In the case of gaming systems, however, I think Japanese people knew that if it didn't build up a library of software, it was worthless.
I agree, the pile-up of bodies on the battlegrounds of the console wars has had an effect. However, I don't agree that it really changed everything. The PC Engine with the CD system was quite an extravagance, and people weren't going to buy it just because it was the latest thing.
Quote
You're hung up on the whole "a console mustn't change or be expanded" mindset, probably because your personal memories of games really start at a time when the whole market, and marketing had stratified into distinct segments.
The early to late 1980's were the Wild West of home computer and videogame development. Anything could happen as people and companies experimented to see what could work, both technologically, and in terms of consumer acceptance.
Back then, a PC was just a Personal Computer, IBM hadn't wiped everyone else off the map.
It was an exciting time. 8)
Perhaps.
But I still think that the CD system looking effectively like a console of its own doesn't require an awareness of the console-concept to work.
You were a computer programmer in the 80s; your perceptions are colored, too. What if you were somebody's mom? A housewife, with a salaryman husband, and now your kid wants you to buy this dumb CD thing? He tells it's just a peripheral like the light gun for his old Famicom, but you look at the price, and you see a separate shelf at the store full of different games. When you gave him the PC Engine on his last birthday, you told him it was the only new console he could have. Now what?
Quote
CD games started out as an "extra" and remained that way until the SFC/SNES blew the entire HuCard market out of the water in 1991 ... and then Hudson still kept on releasing HuCards.
The advertisement above looks like CDs are an extra. It looks like the Hucard is going to detect a CD player and use it for BGM. A library of exclusive CD games looks like something else...and you know what I'm going to say that is. :wink:
How was all this advertised, really? I include myself when I say that we probably can't get an accurate sense of how consumers perceived the system until we see more of how it was presented.
None of the peripherals in the ad ccovell posted actually say anything about exclusive games. For all consumers know, every single game will still be playable on a base system.
Quote
Errrr ... what???
It's dishonest if Hudson didn't want people to think that the CD system was going to have exclusive games. It would be just like Sony advertising their new system as the PS4.5 while quietly acknowledging internally that it's going to get a lot of exclusive content and effectively become its own system.
* Great arguments all around. You seem fluent in your ability to read Japanese as well, giving us valuable insight besides just the pictures in the article. So the CDROM was originally advertised as something that would enhance Hucard games, not replace them? That's sneaky...
*Ditto on the example with for instance the mom telling her child he/she cannot have another console. The Super CD was double the price of the base PC Engine or Core Grafx, so it is plausible a lot of consumers would have stopped there.
~For me, it's not just about the cost of a Duo or Briefcase, though I do consider it a bit steep for what it offers as a retro console, but more about adding another console to my collection. My collection is cramped and a bit cluttered as I currently also have to sleep in my game room. Space is premium until I can afford my own place. I think space is a bigger issue than cost even. Games are easy to store...
*Did the high price of the CDROM attachment cause consumers to dump or trade in their PCe/Coregrafx for a Super Famicom, or did they just patiently wait for new Hucard releases in the latter days? Judging by the fact most late Hucard releases are highly expensive and sought after, sales of the Hucard format post Duo days may have dropped off. Not too different from modern day gamers to ignore last gen tech for whatever's current and hot.
*Finally, I do believe the CDROM format did greatly fragment the existing market. Sure there are analogs such as Nintendo's N64 expansion pak, or the DSi and New 3DS, but mostly games designed around these enhancements worked out of the box with the original system, but gained performance benefit or additional functionality when used with the new or upgraded console. I think initially the ".5" gen Xbone and PS4 upgrades will do this, but over time there will be significant feature creep until games inevitably start to run poorly with the old console, or not at all. Whether this fragments the market or if the MS/Sony consoles continue to coexist on incremental upgrades remains to be seen. I do believe the VR fad will release to great fanfair but ultimately die off, either being dead on arrival like virtual Boy, or becoming a fad that slowly loses it's appeal similar to how motion gaming did, or remain a niche with dedicated fanbase similar to Neo Geo, due mainly to the high pricetag of headsets. One of those three.
~And I won't much rant on Nintendo as I could as easily write a book on the subject. I love their fun centric games, and NX will be a day one purchase for me, but I fear the Wii-U will be remembered much like Sega's Saturn and the NX will become Nintendo's "Dreamcast." I pray this won't be the case and the NX becomes their savior, :pray: but Nintendo is and has been slipping both in the hardware and software department...
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 18, 2016, 04:30:17 PM
As with the context of what it was like at the time this was all happening, just because you're not familiar with it, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. :P
Quote
Also, the system costing 30,000 yen with one game and only coming with one controller is enough to make us go "ouch".
Consumers Distributing catalog from late 1987:
(http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/pcecdad1.jpg)
(http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/pcecdad2.jpg)
In October 1987, $240 U.S. = over 35,000 JPY.
Other interesting products in the same catalog:
(http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/pcecdad3.jpg)
NES Power Pad (no console) $120!
NES SMB Set (NO $48 ZAPPER INCLUDED!) advertised on the same page: $149.
NES SMB Set + Power Pad = $40,000 JPY.
At least the Power Pad received much better software support than the rip-off PC Engine CD-ROM. :roll:
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SamIAm on June 18, 2016, 04:56:20 PM
As with the context of what it was like at the time this was all happening, just because you're not familiar with it, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. :P
Am I mistaken?
I see the Tsuushin booster (aka modem), a PC link, and a keyboard. Did those actually come out?
Quote
Also, the system costing 30,000 yen with one game and only coming with one controller is enough to make us go "ouch".
Quote
At least the Power Pad received much better software support than the rip-off PC Engine CD-ROM. :roll:
Hey man, I didn't write it. They did, in that article.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 18, 2016, 05:05:50 PM
As with the context of what it was like at the time this was all happening, just because you're not familiar with it, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. :P
Quote
Also, the system costing 30,000 yen with one game and only coming with one controller is enough to make us go "ouch".
Consumers Distributing catalog from late 1987:
(http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/pcecdad1.jpg)
(http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/pcecdad2.jpg)
In October 1987, $240 U.S. = over 35,000 JPY.
Other interesting products in the same catalog:
(http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/pcecdad3.jpg)
NES Power Pad (no console) $120!
NES SMB Set (NO $48 ZAPPER INCLUDED!) advertised on the same page: $149.
NES Action Set + Power Pad = $40,000 JPY.
At least the Power Pad received much better software support than the rip-off PC Engine CD-ROM. :roll:
So it's like how PS3 was the cheapest BluRay player on the block for a while, with the PC Engine CDROM playing CDs. Couldn't the CDROM unit be used as a standalone player?
Also I have a CIB "NES Action Set." Serial is fairly early, 4.8 million, smooth surfaced finish (not textured like the later models). There is a Kmart price sticker on the box that reads $109. It came with Mario/Duck Hunt, 2 controllers, AND the Zapper! 40,000 yen seems really steep even if you subtract the worthless PowerPad... :roll:
EDIT:Check your facts! "NES Action Set" couldn't have been released in Japan because it was called the Famicom there and had a completely different form factor.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 18, 2016, 05:12:40 PM
CD-ROM and CD software prices from Dec 1988 PC Mag ad:
(http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/pcecdad4.jpg)
Quote
EDIT: Check your facts! "NES Action Set" couldn't have been released in Japan because it was called the Famicom there and had a completely different form factor.
Consumers Distributing was a North American retailer, hence all of the English.
When I first typed that out, I assumed that for that kind of money, it must be the Action Set. After noticing the Zapper price I doubled checked and that NES set doesn't include it. I forgot to also change that second line to "SMB Set".
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Bonknuts on June 18, 2016, 05:15:58 PM
Quote
The advertisement above looks like CDs are an extra. It looks like the Hucard is going to detect a CD player and use it for BGM. A library of exclusive CD games looks like something else...and you know what I'm going to say that is. :wink:
Except that's not how it worked. Magazines and advertisements don't always get everything right or are dumb downed. There's an interview with Hudson employees that were part of the development process of the CD, and DATA was part of it from the very beginning - because originally they have envisioned storing the DATA in analog format (like a tape drive) - as a redbook track. The technology was so new back then, that something like this wasn't absurd. Though we're lucky they switched to direct digital data (imagine how slow the load times would be for analog mode!).
Quote
* Great arguments all around.
Do you guys take turns high five'n and slapping each other on the back too?
SamIam: The problem with your arguments, is that you've already decided on a point of view and are just looking for stuff to support it, rather presenting an adequate case. You've brought up some interesting points, but that's all they are - and now you're just fishing for whatever makes your argument look compelling (but doesn't add any substance).
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 18, 2016, 05:50:25 PM
You guys obsess over 60,000 yen CD decks or whatever but you really need to take a look at the MSRP of other things. Walkmans, car stereos, Izod shirts, ghetto blasters, audio in particular was really big back then. Component systems were the way serious music listening was done and every JP electronics company made lots of them.
It's also important to understand that if you are a 24 year old Japanese yuppie in 1989 Tokyo you probably don't need a car so while rent is high it's pretty much your only expense. This is exactly the sort of shit people would buy. The closest thing in the US would be New York City, where nobody can afford to own any real estate whatsoever and there's no room for any more cars. Young people living and working there often have huge quantities of disposable income. It's not uncommon to see people wearing $1000 headphones in NYC or Tokyo even if they only make $60-70k a year whereas in the Midwest that money gets blown on giant lawn mowers and property takes and the amount of gasoline you have to buy because for some stupid f*cking reason you live over an hour away from work. That shit.
Another thing to point out, Americans are actually kinda poorer than people in other countries in a lot of ways. We make good money when you look at a mean average but there are huge geographical regions where "gas station clerk" is the only job. Minimum wage hasn't gone up in ages and the middle class hasn't had a real pay raise in 30-35 years. It would be hard to sell the PCE at those prices in the US. And in fact it was harder to sell it at even lower prices. In Japan though they are really only selling to two or three densely populated cities. And while I don't have any sales figures it's pretty obvious that moving PCEs was not a problem since there are several hundred CD games and the PCE is one of the longest lived consoles in video game history.
In short, this money thing that you guys are so singularly obsessed over held back the PCE from going against the SFC but it wasn't honestly a big problem. An arcade game was 100 yen a pop when in the US $0.50 was on the high side. Do you know what it costs for a vehicle inspection in Japan? The US doesn't even have vehicle inspections in most states, largely because even the $35 that NC charges is considered too high.
The money seriously isn't an issue and even if it was...that doesn't make it another system.
Also, regarding the CDROM2 not being called that in early stages, just "CD PLAYER". The same terminology was occasionally used in the English press and certainly the vernacular. When I worked at a video game stores than rented Sega CDs back in the day people would come in and ask for the "CD PLAYER" for the Genesis.
I realize not everyone was around back then but do try to have some understanding of how much a culture 5000 miles and 30 years ago might be different from what we see today in front of us. Japan clearly liked CDROM2. Not as much as HuCARD, but there are multiple reasons for that other than the high price.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: elmer on June 18, 2016, 06:20:25 PM
* Great arguments all around. You seem fluent in your ability to read Japanese as well, giving us valuable insight besides just the pictures in the article. So the CDROM was originally advertised as something that would enhance Hucard games, not replace them? That's sneaky...
Sycophant this much elsewhere? :roll:
Yes, SamIAm is fluent in Japanese ... he works and lives there.
Most of those of us giving him a "hard time" in this argument know him, like him and consider him a friend. Some of us are even working with him on translating Japanese PC Engine games into English.
If you had read some of the other sections here more often, you'd have seen that.
You, OTOH ... have yet to make a good argument, and you have a really annoying habit of repeating entire messages as a "quote" without any editing to show exactly what you're responding to.
If you can't listen to, and really understand, what others are saying, then please at least have the courtesy to learn how to actually use the forum software to edit your responses so that they're a bit more succinct.
It's also important to understand that if you are a 24 year old Japanese yuppie in 1989 Tokyo you probably don't need a car so while rent is high it's pretty much your only expense. This is exactly the sort of shit people would buy. The closest thing in the US would be New York City, where nobody can afford to own any real estate whatsoever and there's no room for any more cars. Young people living and working there often have huge quantities of disposable income. It's not uncommon to see people wearing $1000 headphones in NYC or Tokyo even if they only make $60-70k a year whereas in the Midwest that money gets blown on giant lawn mowers and property takes and the amount of gasoline you have to buy because for some stupid f*cking reason you live over an hour away from work. That shit.
This is the point that I've apparently been failing to make clear.
SamIAm is focusing on the ridiculousness of 12-14 year olds asking their Mom and Dad to buy them a $399 CD add-on for their console. He's right ... that's crazy. Only the really rich kids get to do that.
But what he's ignoring are all of the kids from 1979-1985, the kids whose parents bought an Atari 800, or a Commodore PET, or a TRS-80 ... or a PC-8801 in Japan.
The generation that were growing up in the days of the Atari VCS and the Intellivision, and the ColecoVision.
I'm pretty sure that Japan must had its own equivalents of all of those TV-Game machines (we didn't even use the term "console" back then).
A lot of those kids were growing up, and in their first jobs, when the PC Engine came out.
They may have snuck out to go to arcades when they were younger ... and maybe even still did to meet friends.
They had disposable income.
IMHO, that's who the CDROM2 add-on was probably aimed at. Just like the modem and the keyboard that ccovell posted the pictures of.
The "base" Core System was for everyone. The bells-and-whistles, like the CDROM2 were for those that could afford it ... just like the "early-adopters" have always been targeted.
The price of the CDROM add-on did eventually come down ... and SamIAm has already shown that.
At that point, with a lower price point, and an established library, then maybe "little Johnny" could pester his parents to splash out for the upgrade.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: Black Tiger on June 18, 2016, 06:31:08 PM
I grew up with the Intellivision and snuck into the age restricted arcade in town late at night a few years younger than the minimum age. I paid the full launch price for a Turbo-CD and Ys I & II that was never sent and within a year bought another Turbo-CD at the first price drop. Both times with my own money that I earned while 13 - 14 years old.
By the time the SNES launched, the Turbo-CD was $150 and the TG-16 with extra software was $80.
None of this is a theory of what it must have been like at the time.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: ccovell on June 18, 2016, 07:54:09 PM
I looked up "PC Engine memories" in Japanese. One guy said "The PC Engine was what rich kids' parents bought them after they got bored of the Famicom."
While this perception might be true to some extent, much of it sounds like class-warfare-style sour grapes, and isn't a topic that one goes back to over and over if one actually has the system. Spectrum owners criticized the C-64 and BBC micro for being overpriced, but such criticism didn't make the C-64 qualitatively any worse, nor the BBC any better. Or another example, UK C-64 owners criticized the disk drive as "too expensive" while American and German C-64 owners considered it essential for doing anything on the system.
Anyway, that article that I linked was from summer 1987, a time when there had never been a game on CD-ROM on any format, so the fact that the reporters worded it as "play a game with CD music as the BGM" shows more about their collective inexperience with the technology, than NEC's lack of details/information, I think.
[edit] About all those peripherals all coming out... well, the modem and keyboard were (http://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/sp_tsushinbooster.html) manufactured, but not sold; the PC link was not made by NEC on a consumer level, unless you count the Develo system made years later... but I consider that a hobbyist kit.
Title: Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
Post by: StarDust4Ever on June 18, 2016, 08:10:19 PM