Random trivia: games compatible with multiple systems

[SomeGuyWithDSL]

Today's release of the Burger King games got me started on this subject. All 3 titles have 2 independent versions of the game on each disc, one for the original Xbox and one for the Xbox 360. They play natively on both systems.

 

Trivia obscura: has this ever been done before? That is, has a released game ever contained 2 or more separately progammed versions of the game for different systems on the same media? I ran through several scenarios in my head but couldn't come up with any.

 

Thoughts I've had:

 

1. Did the GameBoy / GameBoy Color hybrid carts contain 2 separate versions of the game, or did the GBC simply access enhancements on top of the original program?

 

2. Atari 2600 games that are "ALSO PLAYABLE ON THE ATARI 7800!" obviously don't count. Same goes for PS1 games advertised as playable on the PS2, etc. as these are solely due to backwards compatibility in the second console.

 

3. I considered titles such as Fahrenheit for the Sega CD / 32X CD. I decided these were both really the same platform (Genesis base with CD attachment) with optional enhanced support for an additional accessory (the 32X), and I would guess the game runs common code for both options, only switching out the video ... and they're not actually on the same disc, just in the same retail package.

 

4. Dreamcast games sometimes included a portable "companion version" of the game for the VMU on the same GD-ROM as the main game. I'm inclined to say that the DC game and the VMU game are so foundationally different that they can't really be "versions" of the same game ... but someone could make the argument. Anyone?

 

5. I suppose cartridge-based examples would be almost impossible due to media physically not connecting to different hardware, unless for backwards compatibility (see #2). Optical, flash or magnetic media offers more potential for storing versions accessible by different consoles.

 

6. Different versions of the same game contained within an emulated package programmed for a third platform (such as an Atari compilation for Xbox with both 2600 and arcade versions of Asteroids) don't count as neither is native to the destination platform.

 

7. Computer titles often ship with Mac/PC versions on the same disc, but I'd like to stick to thoroughbred game consoles for purposes of discussion. Same goes for Palm/Pocket PC hybrid cards, which aren't really "handheld game consoles" (I know, Zodiac is a gray area).

 

8. Games which, by their nature, play on different models of the same platform (such as all CD-i or 3D0 players) don't count. It's just one version on the disc.

Edited November 20, 2006 by SomeGuyWithDSL

[shadow460]

Final Fantasy 8 and six Pokemon games had the capability to play on different hardware from the same disc or cart.

FF8 downloaded Chocobo World to the PocketStation. Pokemon, on the other hand, interacts with an emulator in Pokemon Stadium 2 and 3 (1 and 2 in the USA) so that the Game Boy games are playable on the nintendo 64.

 

I think the DMG/CGB carts had only one program in them. I believe that the DMG carts used certain shades of gray to control the colors that the Color Game Boy would add the game. The hybrid carts I've got (once again, Pokemon) have sparse color to them. Qix is an interesting example, though, as it has not a trace of color info on the cart (too old to have been around when the Color Gameboy was concieved), yet the color Gameboy adds nearly full color to it that is very faithful to the original version.

 

Save Mary also comes to mind. I've seen ads for it as a 7800 game, although it really only uses the 2600 hardware. It's been reproduced to run on the 2600.

 

So I think most of the compatibility is console based, not disc based. Theoretically, Supercharger games could be loaded into an Apple II and played, but it would be the same program.

I think perhaps some of the final PSX games may have been able to detect PS2 hardware and use it, but don't quote me on that. The same thing might have been true for 2600 and 7800 games if it weren't for the authentication in the NTSC consoles.

 

But to answer your question, I think Pokemon is the best example. Rumor tends to be that the R/B/Y games are, in fact, sotred on the Pokemon Stadium 2 cart, and that those reside with G/S/C on Pokemon Stadium 3. Remember those are the Japanese titles--it's 1 and 2 in the US. Rumor does state that the code is activated by the presence of the specific cart in the Transfer Pak. It it's true, then the only thing taking place would be a data transfer of the save file from cart to cart. That doesn't explain why it has to load every once in a while, though.

[MacbthPSW]

I know I'm breaking "rule" #7, but there were game disks that had both the A8 and C-64 versions of the game on the same disk. Some of them are simple "flippies" so the disk is formatted differently on each side, but I'm sure some of the titles actually had two different disk formats on different parts of the same surface. I thought that was pretty cool, and it's certainly more interesting than a Mac/PC CD which simply contains multiple binaries all on the same single CD filesystem.

[SomeGuyWithDSL]

I know I'm breaking "rule" #7, but there were game disks that had both the A8 and C-64 versions of the game on the same disk.

 

I was going to make an exception for what I would consider largely game-centric computers (such as the two you mentioned), but didn't know if it would be important. I really just meant to exclude IBM/Mac discs. The A8/C-64 combo is interesting.

[JB]

I think the DMG/CGB carts had only one program in them. I believe that the DMG carts used certain shades of gray to control the colors that the Color Game Boy would add the game. The hybrid carts I've got (once again, Pokemon) have sparse color to them.

It actually depended on how the game was written, as there were multiple ways of handling things.

 

It was possible to merely add code to select what palette the GBColor would use, giving you a whopping 10-color game(since both your sprite layers had a transparent entry instead of the background layer's "white", it's 4+3+3 instead of 4+4+4).

It was ALSO possible to have a GB game that could branch out and take full advantage of the newer video hardware, while still being otherwise a monochrome game. But if you're going to do that, you may as well go all the way, and make...

The ultimate solution, a game that had 2 wholly independent code branches. This allowed for a game that worked on a monochrome GB or Super GameBoy, but was also capable of taking full advantage of ALL GBC features. Essentially you got 2 different games in one cartridge.

 

Qix is an interesting example, though, as it has not a trace of color info on the cart (too old to have been around when the Color Gameboy was concieved), yet the color Gameboy adds nearly full color to it that is very faithful to the original version.

But you have to select the palette manually.

There ARE several special-cased games the GBC BIOS will recognize and select a specific palette for, but Qix isn't among them, despite having a palette that seems to have been custom-made for it(which I find even more interesting).

 

Some special-case games even have unique palettes that can't be viewed anywhere else. Try Metroid 2 for a good example. The palette it uses doesn't match any of the 12 user-selectable palettes, though it comes close to one of them.

[Toucan]

Parker Brothers put out a number of titles for multiple systems on one disk. I think "Mr.Do!'s Castle" for the Atari 8-Bit and C64 are on one disk. A few of their 1984 releases were like this when they tried to save money by not creating cartridges for the two systems.

[Student Driver]

Space Invaders for GameBoy had a separate 16-bit version specifically for use on the Super Game Boy; other SGB-type GB games had special uses of the SNES hardware but otherwise ran the same code as the GB release.

 

"Flippy" discs, as mentioned, were pretty common back in the day. I've got Atari 8-bit/C64 flippies, Apple II/C64, Apple II/PC, PC/64, etc. I would be surprised if the same didn't also occur in the UK on cassettes.

 

Some C64 software was also released with C128 versions within-- sometimes special code that allowed the C64 program to utilize features of the C128, sometimes wholly separate 128 versions (Arkanoid 2, the Warp Speed utility cart) on the same disk. Since Commodore computers tended to use the same recording formats, I recall compilations (magazine cover disks, user's group disks, etc.) of PET/C64, PET/VIC-20, C64/VIC-20, C64/C128, C128/CP/M, C16/+4 on disks and/or cassettes; similarly, an Apple II release could include versions for various permutations of the II line.

[Uzumaki]

I have quite a lot of dual C64/Atari formatted disks. But I have never seen any C64/PC or C64/Apple formatted disk though. I guess it has to do with the fact that PC and Apple II had disk drives that read both sides as standard while C64 reads only one side. Even the dual sided 1571 are booted into 1541 mode when connected to C64.

[Student Driver]

I have quite a lot of dual C64/Atari formatted disks. But I have never seen any C64/PC or C64/Apple formatted disk though. I guess it has to do with the fact that PC and Apple II had disk drives that read both sides as standard while C64 reads only one side. Even the dual sided 1571 are booted into 1541 mode when connected to C64.

 

The Apple Disk II-- at least the original models-- were single-sided, so flippies were possible. Here's a picture of an Apple/C64 disk:

 

Similarly, though I couldn't find a picture of one off-hand, here's a bit of trivia on the game Starquake from 1985, courtesy of MobyGames: "The PC release was actually a "flippy" disk: The PC version was on the front side, and the Commodore 64 version was on the reverse side."

 

I recall hearing of some copy-protection schemes for the Disk II (which could be controlled on a minute scale) that could have allowed Apple II programs to reside on the same side of a disk as a PC program, but I don't think it ever came to market (it would have required precise alignment of the end-customer's disk drives to work).

[Flojomojo]

The new Burger King games run on both XBOX and XBOX 360!

[Video]

Do those burgerking games actually run natively on both the X-Box and 360? Or is it just an X-Box game that happens to work on the 360, Halo style?

 

The only true multi format games have gone by the wayside, in the form of old Gaming computers, and early IBM/Mac games.

 

Of course, lots of games out there will run on more than one system, due to the backwards compatibility built into the system, but not necessairly cause of anything the game does.

 

I seem to remember some GBC games, would run in an enhanced mode on the GBA though? Don't remember, but there was supposedly one or two that tapped the GBA color palate if on the GBA.. And some, like Zelda DX would have extra stuff or levels if played on the GBC as opposed to the DMG.

[Flojomojo]

As SGWDSL says regarding the Burger King XBOX games: There are two versions of the game on each disc, no emulation or backwards compatibility is used here. The same method is used with the Official XBOX Magazine demo discs.

 

Regarding GameBoy: Gray cartridges are monochrome games and would play on anything up to a GBA SP. Black cartridges would play with enhanced graphics on a GameBoy Color, or plain monochrome graphics on an old GameBoy. Clear cartridges would only play on a GameBoy Color on up to the GBA SP. Game Boy Advance games only play on Game Boy Advance systems and Nintendo DS. The GameCube GameBoy player can play any of these cartridges.

 

For a while, hybrid Mac/PC discs were easy to find. Notable games that used this format were Diablo and Starcraft. Separate executables would appear, depending upon which machine was reading the disc. You're right to leave out computers though, since there's plenty of backwards compatibility in DOS/Windows, UNIX, and 68K/PowerMac/MacIntel systems to talk about.

 

Before the Playstation arrived in the US, there was a "hear it now, play it later" CD that had some hardware demos for the unit hidden on it.

 

I'm pretty sure you could load GBA games onto a DS cartridge, but I'm not sure about that ...

 

I can't think of any other examples -- hardware manufacturers are pretty good about restricting code to their systems only. I'm surprised the latest Zelda isn't dual-format. If it were, I'd be tempted to get the Cube version, play it, and "upgrade" to the Wii version on the same disc when I decided to get the new hardware.

[128bytes]

Plenty of kids' educational game CD's can run on both Macintosh and Windows. Both versions are included in their entirety on the CD.

[+FujiSkunk]

PC games, especially those from the late '80s to the late '90s.

 

Before things like OpenGL and DirectX made audio and video programming (slightly) more standardized, it was not uncommon for a game to have hooks for all sorts of different hardware bits: CGA, EGA, VGA, Hercules, Tandy 16-color, Soundblaster, Ad-Lib, PC squeek box, and so on.

[JB]

I seem to remember some GBC games, would run in an enhanced mode on the GBA though? Don't remember, but there was supposedly one or two that tapped the GBA color palate if on the GBA.. And some, like Zelda DX would have extra stuff or levels if played on the GBC as opposed to the DMG.

There were multiple ways it could be done, ranging from pre-selecting "colorization" palettes from the GBC BIOS palettes all the way up to including 2 completely diffrent games in a single cartridge.

 

There aren't any 8-Bit games that make actual use of the GBA hardware, though there's one or two that unlock bonuses if used in a GBA. The game can tell by the system ID bits if it's been inserted into a GBA or not. But the GBA features aren't actually accessible in 8-bit mode, so to my knowledge there's nothing you can do that can't be done on a GBC.

[+remowilliams]

The craziest example I've ever seen (I still don't quite know how they did this) were floppies that contained the Amiga and ST versions on the same disk.