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Satoshi Matrix

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Posts posted by Satoshi Matrix

  4. Posted

    Yes - FDS games were cheaper by quite a wide margin. The Famicom Disk System was created to address a chip shortage at the time which caused production of cartridges to be rather expensive.

     

    Because they were not using solid state mask roms, FDS games could be produced far more quickly and more importantly, far more cheaply than cartridge based games. Since the production costs were so low and Nintendo was pushing the attachment as a must-own, FDS games were sold for an average price of 20,000 yen vs the typical cartridge game that sold for 48,000 yen. In addition to that, FDS cames could be rewritten at special kiosks all across Japan for only 500 yen. This meant that Japanese kids could use their own spending money to get new games once they got bored of their old ones. There were even blank disks sold strictly for this purpose.

     

    In 1986, the double sided disks with 64K on each side offered more storage that cartridges could, allowed users to save, and were much cheaper. On the other hand, the magnetic belts in the disks themselves were exposed to the air and were extremely succetable to corruption, which renders the disk unplayable. To add to that, the FDS itself requires a special drive belt that can and will melt or snap with normal use. Nintendo sold replacement belts, but they are a pain to install and eventually, there will be no more replacement belts to fix the FDS.

     

    By late 1987, the chip shortage had passed, battery backed s-ram could be implemented into cartridges, and mask rom sizes soon exceeded what the FDS was capable of. With each passing month prices continued to fall and the FDS soon found itself outmatched by the very format it was created to replace. It was for these reasons as well as concerns about piracy that Nintendo of America never produced an NES Disk System.

    • Like 1

  5. Posted

    Well, a good 95% of the time you use it, the FDS isn't actually doing anything other than lighting an LED. The system reads the disk sectors and loads them into the RAM adapter. Then you play your loaded game via the RAM Adapter, which gets 5v from the Famicom itself. The initial loading process, as well as any saving you do are the only times when the FDS actually really requires power. You could even remove the batteries when the system has already loaded the game data to the RAM adapter and it still would work fine. Basically, the FDS is just a terminal to transmit data from the 64K floppy disk to the RAM Adapter which then sends the data to the Famicom. Once the data is transmitted, the FDS has done its duty for king and country and can just chill out. This is why to me at least, it isn't surprising that the FDS lasts that long at all.

  6. Posted

    Hm, I don't think any prototypes of the Nintendo Disk System were ever actually created, but I know support was planned. Rather than the RAM Adapter attaching to the cartridge port, the NES version would have attached to the expansion port on the bottom of the system that was otherwise completely unused. the US attachment would have sat directly under the system like the Stelleview, N64 Disk Drive, or Nintendo GameCube GameBoy Player.

     

    Here's an example of the expansion audio in the FDS Zelda.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBEkwRTFfHw

  8. Posted

    Great stuff, Matrix. Now that the word is getting out on your blog (lots of responses on your top ten so far), just remember that with success comes TROLLS, lol...try not to feed them, but it's great to see you're willing to back up your statements.

     

    Thanks. I'll keep that in mind. My aim was never to appeal to everyone or else I would be writing a top 100 FPS games sprinkled with a few dozen Madden titles. Afterall, boy do I sure love Call of Duty, Halo and Madden! Yessirie! They sure are better than anything classic gaming has to offer!

     

    I think I should do a top 100 Atari 2600 games to see how the trolls react.

  9. Posted

    I own quite a number of clones and have made reviews for most of them. Clones fascinate me. I long for the day when we'll see a perfect NOAC. It's not impossible. It can be done. Chinese companies need to just stop penny pinching and devote some resources to develop a single NOAC that's more expensive but superior to all the rest. I'd be willing to pay even $100 for a Famiclone that had a completely reversed engineered, flawless NOAC.

     

    As it is, the RetroDuo is the closest we've seen.

    • Like 1

  11. Posted

    Thanks for everyone's advice. So what's the best one out there? Thanks. It helps alot!

     

    Quite honestly a modded PSP 2000 or 3000. All of the NOAC clones are really not good. I recently reviewed the RetroDuo Portable which had a lot of promise, but it too fails to live up to expectations. Emulation is the clear winner so far. The PSP emulates the NES brilliantly.

  12. Posted

    It wasn't as simple as all that. RPGs at the time did NOT sell in North America. Gamers were confused by them, found them boring. Enix lost a TON of money on every Dragon Warrior title they localized. They had produced a massive amount of Dragon Warrior 1 carts thinking it would sell as it did in Japan but when nobody was buying them, Nintendo began giving them away as subscriber bonuses for their oh-so-beloved propaganda magizine, Nintendo Power, which was pretty much the internet of its day.

     

    Then Enix published Dragon Warrior, II, III and even Dragon Warrior IV. These were bad choices for the publisher as it cost them a lot and the return on their investment was so little.

     

    It seems weird to think that there was a time when RPGs were not king of the world, but tastes change over time. RPGs lack of popularity is also one of the key factors in the death of Earth Bound being released in 1991.

     

     

     

    Anyway, here's #5. I really, really love this game.

    http://satoshimatrix.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/top-100-nesfamicom-games-list-5/

    • Like 1

  14. Posted

    I've never read a "Top X NES Games" list that had even a tenth of the thought put into it that this one has.

     

    Thanks. I hate to toot my own horn, but this was my goal right from the start. I saw other top 10's, even a few top 100's. And in list after list, you'd get maybe a paragraph explaining it, one tiny jpeg, and the overall impression the person doing the list played the game for less than five minutes. Not only that, but I've seen some truly terrible choices on some lists. No matter what reality you live in, Deadly Towers or Bokosuka Wars do not constitute the best of anything.

     

    So right from the get go I set my goal as to write my personal top 100 list that's better than any other existing list. It is gratifying to hear other people think I've achieved that.

  18. Posted

    Alrighty guys, I've decided the best way to tackle the final top 10 is individual posts once a day for the next ten days. This way allows individual comments to be left for each entry, allows me time to write the next one without keeping you waiting for the whole thing, and avoids a monstrously large final post that would dwarf any I've done before. It will be a little bit better for everyone in my estimation.

     

    Of course, you needn't agree with my choices, I'm just sounding my voice. I do hope for a discussion about these though, as they represent my absolutely favorites.

     

    So here's #10.

     

    http://satoshimatrix.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/top-100-nesfamicom-games-list-10/

  21. Posted

    Alright guys, here's the much anticipated part 3 where I showcase and stress test the NES RetroPort that the RDP comes with. Which NES games will it play well, which will it fail miserably at? Come find out!

     

     

    I had hoped to make this the final installment, but I ran out of time that youtube will allow. So therefore, I'll be bringing you guys one final video installment where I'll showcase a few more games people have asked me if they run on the RDP and give my final thoughts and verdict on the RDP.

     

    Enjoy!

    • Like 1

  23. Posted

    Yeah exactly. You can buy fully desoldered, ready to use NES CPU and PPU chips. To turn it into a real Famicom, you'll definitely need a replacement CPU, but the clone PPU does a very good job on its own. I did this before for one of my deceit clones. You can get them at arcadecomponents.com when they have them in stock, which is most of the time.

     

    CPU

    http://www.arcadecomponents.com/catalog/item/3054735/2583124.htm

     

    PPU

    http://www.arcadecomponents.com/catalog/item/3054735/2583135.htm

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