about PC-FX development history - [Ironman / Tetsujin]

[handygrafx]

Hi.  we all know that the PC-FX came out in late 1994.  
what most people don't know is that NEC and Hudson's
32-bit system was in development for a long time. about 4 years.  

from what I have gathered from magazine articles
and the internet, development of the system began
in 1990.   this was Project Tetsujin, better known as
Ironman, sometimes known as Iron Man FX and also
known as Hudson HuC62.

Also, I have read conflicting information about the changes
made from Tetjsujin / Ironman to the final PC-FX.  supposedly
the earlier incarnation of the hardware, Tetsujin / Ironman
could handle some 3D polygon graphics.  not as well as Playstation
or Nintendo64 but perhaps as well as Saturn. this capability was
supposedly dropped from the final PC-FX.  maybe that would explain
the absense of those 3D games like Super Star Soldier FX / 3D and
Lords of Thunder FX. and that 3D driving game that looked like
Virtua Racing seen in GameFan magazine. Perhaps these were games
for the Tetsujin / Ironman system, but got scrapped when PC-FX turned
out to be a system more for FMV based games than for 3D or even sprites.


anyway, I'll just post some of the info I find, as I find it, and add
more comments.  probably in an unorganized fashion, but, ah well.

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:Yo8DUuM0H9MJ:tuvgm.online.fr/Dossiers/PC-FX/+hudson+HuC62&hl=en

History
Hudson Soft begins the development at the end of 1990, named project: Tetsujin . In May 1992 , a first prototype is presented. Composed of a central microprocessor HuC62320 (32-bits RISC , 10 Mips) and assisted by 5 coprocessors. At the beginning of 1994 , the Tetsujin project was moulted in project FX. Manufacturing is NEC partner of Hudson since the PC-Engine via its branch NEC HE (NEC Home Entertainment). The microprocessor is not any more HuC62320 but a NEC V810.

translated: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fjuly.fixedreference.org%2Ffr%2F20040727%2Fwikipedia%2FPC-FX&langpair=fr%7Cen&hl=en&safe=off&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

Hudson Soft begins the development at the end of 1990, named project: Tetsujin . In May 1992 , a first prototype is presented. Composed of a central microprocessor HuC62320 (32-bits RISC , 10 Mips) and assisted by 5 coprocessors. At the beginning of 1994 , the Tetsujin project was moulted in project FX. Manufacturing is NEC partner of Hudson since the PC-Engine via its branch NEC HE (NEC Home Entertainment). The microprocessor is not any more HuC62320 but a NEC V810.
[/quote]


PCFX motherboard - circa 1994



Hudson 32-bit prototype system: Ironman aka Iron Man FX aka Hudson HuC62 aka Project Tetsujin - circa 1992


..credit to Fabrizio Pedrazzini of The Strange (and Rare) Videogame Pics Page


credit to Aaron Nanto of pcenginefx.com

[Keranu]

Very intriguing!

[Zerojean]

I was a member of Advance console entertainment's news ring in the early 90's, they sent us out a press release thing telling how the Ironman's key feature was its abilty to morph images on the fly, the screen shot examples showed a woman turning into a man (orvisa versa). Such wierd feature was never touted later on afaik.

[Black Tiger]

Also, I have read conflicting information about the changes
made from Tetjsujin / Ironman to the final PC-FX.  supposedly
the earlier incarnation of the hardware, Tetsujin / Ironman
could handle some 3D polygon graphics.  not as well as Playstation
or Nintendo64 but perhaps as well as Saturn. this capability was
supposedly dropped from the final PC-FX.  maybe that would explain
the absense of those 3D games like Super Star Soldier FX / 3D and
Lords of Thunder FX. and that 3D driving game that looked like
Virtua Racing seen in GameFan magazine. Perhaps these were games
for the Tetsujin / Ironman system, but got scrapped when PC-FX turned
out to be a system more for FMV based games than for 3D or even sprites.

The Saturn isn't a generation drop from the PSX and N64. For approximating, they're all about the same.

The Saturn was harder to develop for commonly known reasons, but could handle 3D graphics as good as anything on the other two systems.

Depending on taste, the N64's visuals were behind that of the PSX and Saturn.

If we're to believe that the 3D demo(s) of the ship flying over the city was running on real Ironman hardware, then it's closest console equivelant would be the 32X and we'd likely have seen lots of polygon(little or no textures) games.

CGI rendered graphics were popular at the time and were used in a lot of SNES/SFC games. People thought it was futuristic and the next best thing to 3D on the fly.

I don't think that Super Star Soldier FX / 3D and
Lords of Thunder FX were ever planned to be 3D games and I only ever saw the Lords' demo shown as a demo, not a game(U.S. game mags liked to take any media and label it as a game in development).

If they'd been completed, they'd probably have been fmv PC-FX games, perhaps like those Sewer Shark/Microcosm style games. It would've been nice to get something more like Silpheed/a real game, but the PC-FX's gimmick was fmv.