SuperGrafx mentioned in SEGA interview on making 3D Sonic the Hedgehog for 3DS

[handygrafx]

http://blogs.sega.com/2013/12/03/sega-3d-classics-–-3d-sonic-the-hedgehog-interview-with-developer-m2/?6866309=1

Naoki Horii, president of developer M2 who has been making the SEGA 3D Classic games for the 3DS, talks at length about what they had to do to get Sonic the Hedgehog  to run in 3D at the right framerate.

They made a MegaDrive emulator for 3DS called 'GigaDrive' (note: it's not mentioned but that was unofficially the early codename in 1991-92 for what eventually evolved into Project Mars (Genesis 32X) and the Saturn.

Here is the relevant part where he mentions the SuperGrafx:

With regards to the GigaDrive’s architecture,  what level of hardware are we talking about?

NH: We’ve expanded the flexibility of the MegaDrive, to a larger extent than for instance how the PC Engine Super Grafx multiplied the number of sprites and backgrounds that the PC Engine had, and added memory to it. With the GigaDrive, Video Processor functions were added for the expanded game functionality, there are more sprite tables, you can use six background layers, the backgrounds have depth, all objects have depth, etc. Once you’ve got all this working, you can build Sonic The Hedgehog in 3D.

The whole interview is great but I won't mention any more since that would be going completely off topic.  I just think it's kewl that Naoki Horii mentioned the PC Engine SuperGrafx and it's featured on Sega's blog 

[Tatsujin]

yeah, read through that whole stuff..was a good read.  still like the sega's super scaler 3D remakes much better than just le simple sonic.

they also canceled Thunder Blade in the favor of Sonic  
why couldnd't they have canceled something like f.e. altered breast instead???

[Nando]

This kinda makes me want a 3DS

[Tatsujin]

this sure was my buying reason last summer

[Arkhan]

Everyone is going to be like OMFG NEED SUPRFGRAFXARSDFF NOW.

[Joe Redifer]

Just got off the phone with Best Buy. They confirmed that the SuperGrafx has been selling a lot more and it's been hard to keep in stock since this interview came out.

[esteban]

My daughter has a 3DS but I haven't really explored the library. Too bad she wants Pokemon for XMAS instead of old skool FEKA, reimagined.

Oh well.

[Tatsujin]

Lol Esty just secretly DL them onto her 3DS. I'm sure she wouldn't mind some extra icons on the main screen. ^^

[esteban]

Lol Esty just secretly DL them onto her 3DS. I'm sure she wouldn't mind some extra icons on the main screen. ^^

Hahhahahaahaha. You speak the trüth.  .

[handygrafx]

Just got off the phone with Best Buy. They confirmed that the SuperGrafx has been selling a lot more and it's been hard to keep in stock since this interview came out.

LOL

I heard NEC decided to manufacture more SuperGrafx consoles after the initial production run of about 50,000 units.

Now they're making something like 500,000 a month.

[Joe Redifer]

Pff I wish. So much potential in that system and it PAINS me to see it barely ever even touched.

[Tatsujin]

houly farkin' nolan!! they are continuing!! they must have heard my prayers (rem..rants)!!

http://www.4gamer.net/games/242/G024220/20131211011/

joe redifer get your 3DS ready!!!

[Joe Redifer]

Ha! On a side note, does anyone actually play with those screen tilting/rotating features enabled? My first time playing Super Hang-On prompted a quick reset in order to try to figure out how to turn that off.

[Tatsujin]

lol beware. I only once switched in that mode for checking it out. the 3DSLL screen is small enough already.

One cool thing about the 3DS screen is its relatively low resolution which is very close to the one of our old 16-bit and 80s arcade games, allowing it to reproduce all the graphics in almost full screen and native resolution. therefore I also dont use the zoom and stretch feature. I rather have a little smaller (only few pixs anyway) picture but in native res.

[Joe Redifer]

I don't think the zoom feature stretches it, just adds more on the sides making the game actually wider.