Atari Pogostick
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Posts posted by Atari Pogostick
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Hmm I think a few of your Nintendo burns are kind of debatable or at least up to fair interpretation. I get your point though enough Nintendo fanboys are full of their own fart sniffing, same can be said of Sega and really Sony clingers too.
Are you talking about my posts? All those quotes are real.
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Yeah, all true. But it's not Nintendo's fault that so many "video game writers" are lazy hacks.
How it it not Nintendos fault when they KNEW and let it happen? For years? Decades?
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I wouldnt count on anything past WTR graphically. It looks impressive for the limited 3D capability of the Jaguar. Both systems are in completely different price ranges though so hard to compare fairly.
Not sure what the price range has to do with anything. Yeah 3Do had some newer parts but that would place it $100 more at best but liekly closer to $50 more, the rest of the price difference was the distribution model which brough it to $500 ($700 with gun and included game.)
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As for the topic of the thread:
I don't think the big N ruined video games, but I also don't think they saved them either. I think they exploited a weakness in the market, by strong arming 3rd party development houses into questionable exclusivity agreements, making it much easier on themselves to deliver a mostly shoddy product to an unknowing market sector, and drowned out their competition in Atari and Sega with copious over-marketing and intentionally deceitful ad campaigns - and forced their competition into a near complete lack of 3rd party development support.
They were a bit like Gordon Gecko. They bought into the market when it was low, treated their employees like shit, and forced everyone else out of the market through unsavory tactics. And they covered it all up with a mask of cutesy mushroom and cartoon themed syrupy kidsy themed force-fed "product".
One could say their third-party strong arm failed and succeeded. Because it didn't work for western devs at all.
Of all relevant consoles in the us, the best selling games are all primarily western, except Nintendo consoles, which is of no surprise since western devs always fled from Nintendo from the NES. Especially American ones. N64 did a bit better in that department but still no.
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My issue is that many people spread false claims about when and where Nintendo did things, what they introduced or revolutionized, what games had what impact, and there were times people were paid off. My bigger issue is Nintendo KNEW this, but let it happen for personal gain and this has resulted in a base Nintendo will never have access to and will always only be on the competition or PC's.
Remember these: "Nes came out in 1985 with SMB sold millions saved the industry, Segajoined, NES sold 5766 million in less than two years, so Atari put out 7800 because video games were back"
"Atari and co were 4-bit systems and are2nd gen. What ColecoVision? Put that second gen to, also 4-bit machine."
"Without Nintendo scrolling games would never be made."
"All Atari and old computers had were arcade games, Nintendo had real games(proceeds to name double dragon as not an arcade game???"
"Nes introduced scrolling to consoles"
"No retailers carried games before NES."
"We would not be playing games without NES"
"Nes introduced the game genres we know today."
"Nes was first controller with two buttons giving a range of options.
"Super Nintendo Mode 7 was the first time we got Sprite scalling."
"Super Nintendo Starfox is the first 3D game.
"SNES Star Fox is the first successful 3D game."
"N64 has an analogue stick."
"Real 3D games started with N64"
"Without Mario 64 no one would know how to do 3D"
"Mario 64 Is the first 3D platformer"
"Mario 64 is 3D Crash bandicoot is not 3D"
"Zelda oot introduced a lock-on system in games."
"Without GoldenEye Quake/half-life/Halo wouldn't exist."
"GoldenEye is the first fps where you can shoot an enemy at different parts of their body."
Etc etc etc.
All quotes are real and have been said throughout the years, and also currently. They knew this, and led a cult revise history for a loong tome. But we are way better in 2018 than in 2001.
As for "saving the industry" and giving them"some" credit I don't agree. I think anyone who tried could have closed the vacuum. If Atari sold 1 million 2600's in 1985 with no advertising, a console that at that point came out almost 10 years prior with primitive graphics, anybody could have came in. Heck if the 7800 came out in 85 I think things would have been vastly different.
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You'd think Jerry Lawson and some of his fellow designers would get billing similar to Nolan bushell but it seems the winners writing history will always remain the same.
There was a room of pitfall II made by a homebrew Dev about half a decade ago, gotta see if I can find the video for it, it's looks pretty good.
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HERO (5200)
Gex (3DO)
Rayman (PSX)
Btw were people actually expected to beat Rayman without cheats since continues can't be gained?
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Didn't want to mix this with the ColecoVision thread.
Now as we all know, the 2600 and Intellivision got a make over and got a second life selling from 1985-1992 and 1985-1990 respectively.
What I'm curious about is whether we have any numbers for these consoles during this period? There are multiple articles from 86-88 talking about either console being "back in the game" or selling out. The 2600 Jr came out in 86 designed like the 7800 and had numerous game releases during that period.
Lurking on this forum before, I think there was a post about Atari celebrating 25 million 2600's sold in 85 or 86, which put an end to the old 30 vs. 40 million 2600 LTD debate some years back. This form shifted the consensus to 30. So that would imply the 2600 at least sold around 5 million during the second run wouldn't it?
Outside articles of selling out, I've never seen numbers for Intellivision post launch.
We have any idea how these two consoles performed during that time?
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Now, I've lurked classic gaming boards for years, and I've always wondered how much the CV actually sold whether worldwide or in a specific country. Old articles now likely behind archive paywalls used to show the property newsletters having ColecoVision talk about profits and such in regards to the CV. We had debates about whether 2 or six million was more reliable.
But in the end we only had one confirmed source and that was ColecoVision announcing one million 8 months after launch.
Have we not found any other reliable sales numbers for the CV? Because it would suck if it remains a mystery. Any sales number would emphasise just how fast ColecoVision was moving from 82-85. It would also help make it more relevant so it isn't an after thought.
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I really don't get the 3D comments, from 1992-1996 fake-3D 2D was very popular until3D started to become aprimary focus, so it was indeed the "right" time to bring over those games on 3DO/Sat/PSX, and computers. The reason I never mentioned Genesis/SNES/Neogeo is because they were not capable of running the notable arcade ones.
Traditional 2D games were the ones that were fading back then, psudo-3D was King until 3D found a platform.
The only console or computer that brought a small handful over was Sega but only for the early ones from the 80's. They basically ignored there end of 80's/90's stuff which the Saturn could easily run instead releasing traditional 2D games that didn't have the wow factor.
As for Crusin' N64 that's a very odd subject to bring up as it was a bad port with bad controls and cut corners. So it wasn't just it being a 2D/polygon mix that gave it a low score. In the 94 arcade release Crusin' was praised greatly.
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3DO had Trips instead of the cheaper interrupts Tramiels decided to use.
Can you elaborate on this?
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It's simple: No one wanted pseudo 3D by the mid '90s, polygons were all the rage.
That's not to say no quality ports exist though. Saturn in particular got several ports of some of Sega's various other Super Scaler games (OutRun, Space Harrier, After Burner II, Power Drift, and Galaxy Force II). Taito's Night Striker was ported to a variety of systems too, including the Saturn.
We had capable consoles before 96, as it says in the OP. #d isn't really a reason that makes sense. Even computers didn't get any brought over and there were capable for an even longer period than consoles.
As for the Saturn those games are 80's scaler games that can run on weaker hardware. Super Chase and 90's scaller games can easily be run on systems like the Saturn yet we got none. I'm don't think Sega ever brought any of their 90's ones if they did it was likely only a few.
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It's pretty simple; home systems like Genesis and SNES weren't powerful enough to really run ports of those games well, and while there were some obvious efforts (AfterBurner and Outrun ports to Genesis and Sega CD for example), they were generally quite poor compared to the arcade versions.
And by the time home systems WERE powerful enough to run those games w/ the 5th generation, I guess those developers figured since they were, essentially, 2D games using sprite scaling to emulate 3D, that home audiences by that time would not be as impressed w/ arcade-perfect ports of them vs., say, Ridge Racer or Virtua Fighter 2, or home efforts like Super Mario 64. Basically, the timing for super-scaler 2D ports being big mainstream releases for home consoles had passed.
As for why there weren't more on say the 32X, well, the 32X turned into a dumpster fire and at the end of the day it was a dying add-on. Dev and porting costs simply likely didn't justify the efforts to port such games to it vs. investing in the upcoming systems of the time.
I think the best option for ports of those games during the 4th gen would've been either the Neo-Geo, 3DO or even Jaguar. Jaguar in particular, since it was pretty affordable, tho the system already had an image problem of not being "true" 64-bit and games looking like barely-better 16-bit releases b/c of "lazy" developers. It would've needed more fresh and visually-pushing content than ports of late '80s/early '90s arcade 2D super-scroller games to turn that narrative around.
All that said, it is kinda surprising more of those games didn't make it to the Sharp X68000 in Japan; they would've been REALLY perfect for that thing over there.
Your first sentence basically ignores the OP.
As for the rest of your post games like the gif above were still played in arcades at least until around 1996 which also was the height of companies focusing primarily on 3D so at that's 3+ years of PSX/3DO/JAG/Amiga etc. where no one expressed any interest in bringing these over.
Also it's not just for the time either we still are emulating most of them NOW despite compilations and retro download titles having a market. it's always seemed weird to me.
Oh and BTW Neo-Geo couldn't run most of these types of games. Maybe the late 80's ones but the 90's ones I don't see. In fact, I'm not sure any Neo-Geo game shows it can move sprites fast enough to have those effects. In terms of 2D, even at the time, I think that the Neo-Geo is constantly overrated in terms of its capabilities honestly. I can see the 32X doing some though, but like the Neo-Geo likely late 80's primarily. i can see 90-91 on 32X but for only a few select games.
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Can we please not do this?
There are a lot of other "versus" threads you can read if you want to discuss the relative merits of 30yo game systems and show your thoughts using GIFs.
It's not a vs. thread but thanks for not reading, also neither are 30 years old either.
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Actually despite what people here believe Plug N' Plays are a small niche market. Their height was the mid 2000's where companies were competing on amount of games and how good the default controller was. I remember you saw guys selling them in malls, and you could plug them in and play 2000 games, which was really 300 games but just various of the same game (like Pitfall allowing you to skip a level or Contra with cheat codes on automatically.)
They actually made money back then and were more expensive on average. The market imploded.
The new Game V portables and such you see in stores now are just replacing the old Zone systems, (Zone 20, 30, 40, 60)
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Hello everyone, I've always wondered what the real issue with the Jaguar was and over the years I've heard many different reasons brought up. Especially when comparing to it's rival console that released the same year. The two reasons I hear the most are the following:
1. The Jaguar "Tools" were insufficient
2. The 68k blocked full access to the riscs.
On top of these two reasons, it is also common to hear from interviewers and analysts (from back then and now) saying that the Jaguar unconstrained is a bit less powerful than the PSX and notably more powerful than the 3DO. This is what i want to explore the most because it doesn't make much sense to me.
In this comparison between the 3DO and the Jaguar I bring up two specific games, World Tour Racing for the Jaguar, and Autobahn Tokio for the 3DO. The reason I choose these games is simple: World Tour Racing, if not the best technical game (in terms of consistency) on the Jaguar, it's definitely top 3. Autobahn tokio was rushed and used horrible tools and is one of the more inconsistent and less graphically impressive games on the 3DO. The reason why I wouldn't use games like NFS here is because Autobahn and WTR are very close to each other in graphical fidelity, relatively, and would be a better pair of games to prove the point I'm trying to express.
Basically I believe that, whether it's because of the design of the Jaguar board or its a lie the Jaguar had as much power as people say in the first place, it's IMPOSSIBLE, even if you had full access to RISC and had a more flexible bus/memory, that the Jaguar still wouldn't produce much better than World Tour Racing. I believe at best, you'd have a slightly better, but noticeable, frame rate, and more stable polygons, marginally.
Now before I begin, I actually am a bigger fan of the Jaguar, I think the Jag does have enough power so as not to be compared to CD32/32X 3D, but I also believe there's a reason that back then, and mostly currently, the 3DO is more consistently compared to the SAT/PSX and the Jag is much more frequently compared to 32X/CD32 and even Genesis/SNES 3D chips. I think the belief that the Jaguar would show significant and amazing improvements with just better memory management and full access to RISC, a belief that is prevalent, is simple nonsense.
Now let's compare these two games in the following gifs:
On the left is WTR and on the right is AT. Now World Tour Racing looks good, is one of if not the best polygon pushing game on the Jaguar, especially when you look at image quality, consistency and Frame-rate.
Image quality wise i'd easily give it to WTR. However, outside of that it's completely lop-sided. AT has a much better and more consistent frame-rate and that's despite AT being jerky. AT has much better texturing whether on the objects, the road itself, or the vehicles. You also have more going on from flashing signs, to smoke and lighting (90's lighting anyway), with buildings and objects of multiple sizes zooming by. While in WTR most of the buildings, while impressive from certain perspectives, are in reality are giant gray rectangles with one side slightly textured with windows facing the track, and copy and pasted trees in a very repetitive and static design. However I will say WTR may beat AT at draw distance.
Now let's look at NFS on 3DO
As you can see this blows the other two games out the water technically. It's not even close.
So here's my issue. World Tour Racing was a late Jaguar game, that was able to do more with the tools than other developers. Yet it cant beat a rushed jerky mess (AT) graphically, let alone come even remotely close to NFS. So this caused me to wonder, if the gap is THIS big, can it simply be lack of access to the RISC or the tools? it doesn't make any logical sense to come to that conclusion.
Most of the top 3D games on the Jaguar, while the Image Quality or the size of the polygons is improved, they all share fairly similar problems regardless. Even with better understanding years later, even Post-release homebrews, you still have similar problems. Would full access to RISC and better tools really do THAT much better than World Tour Racing? At Best I see the Jaguar running a game similar to AT and not much more than that and even that's stretching it due to flashing signs and a frame-rate most 3D Jaguar games dream of.
I believe the Jaguar is capable of early 90's PC 3D, and the ability to have scaling 2D like Super Termination or Outrunners can do. I think that's the level the Jaguar should have targeted in the first place, that was more than enough to run the popular games and many arcade ports back in those days. But the jaguar focused much more on trying to reach 3DO/PSX polygons which it could never do and basically didn't care about Psudo-3D 2D at all.
If you were to ask me if the Jaguar was easier to develop for if it would have sold much more, than yeah, that's a situation I think is possible. But, as for the Jaguar having some kind of secret sauce, I don't buy it. the difference between the 3DO and JAGUAR is too big and that's using a rushed jerky racing game(AT), and a game that came out earlier in the 3DO's life(NFS). "Lack of access" and "Tools" cannot explain away a gap that large. It's like comparing the N64 to the Dreamcast.
Now with that said, I would have loved Atari to try put out Scaling 2D games with pseudo 3d effects. It's interesting that there was no console that ever tried bring those scaling 2D arcade games at home. The PSX/SAT/3DO/JAG are more than capable for these types of games and we never got them. In fact most are still in arcades and only in arcades. Damn shame. I would have loved to play Super Criminal Termination at home.
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By Scaling 2D I mean those Pseudo 3D scaling effect you saw in many action, first-person arcade, helicopter, and racing games. Sometimes even boxing, like the gif below Super Criminal Termination:
We had the console that could run them from 1992-1998 heck even PC and Home Computers could run these games. I'm baffled why these games were among the only ones in the Arcade that were not brought over to Home Consoles/Computers. Instead we got some very stripped down unrecognizable versions on earlier consoles that could not even come close to running them, but once we started getting more powerful systems most of them never came over.
You'd thing SEGA would have brought a bunch of their own stuff over but even they didn't do that and the Saturn/Dreamcast (arguably, maybe, the [email protected] as well) were more than capable. Now I get after 1996 everyone was obsessed with 3D, but that doesn't excuse the years before or having some companies throw some after 96 for a quick buck. Some of them would be easy ports as well.
Sadly, you need to emulate arcade machines to play most of them.
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The Hyperscan looks like a strong contender for worst console ever. At least the RCA Studio II is an interesting museum piece. It's kind of cool from a historical and collecting standpoint. The Hyperscan has nothing going for it.
The Hyoerscan started the Skylanders thing before it was popular. Just used cards instead of toys.
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Post Crash sales figures for 2600 and Intellivision?
in Classic Console Discussion
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