The PC Engine doesn't do 256 x 224 pixel fmv. The actual video is a lower resolution and is doubled one way or another. Some Sega-CD games do the same thing. Otherwise all 16-bit fmv games would be full screen.
That sounds to me like either the VDP has some sort of automatic doubling function, or there's a kind of software graphics decompression algorithm (essentially like a codec) that's telling the CPU to double everything when it copies graphics into the VRAM. Both of these things are quite emulate-able.
The PC-FX FMV decoder literally cannot output more than 256 pixels per line, and that's coming directly from the author of mednafen. There's no room for trickery there.
The PC-FX clearly was a system designed during the FMV boom of the early '90s, but it released too late; release that in 1993 sometime and they'd have had a chance for a 3DO-like period of limited success, though not having 3d power even on the 3DO's level would have hurt it even there... but by late 1994, times were changing. 3D was the new thing, and FMV was on its way out. And as you've shown, the PS1 could match or beat the PC-FX in FMV from the beginning.
I seem to remember Bonknuts, the master of all things PCE hardware related, saying that the type of RAM used in the Super System Card was a more expensive kind, and that it was used out of some kind of necessity. I could be wrong, though.
Huh. Still, it probably should have had more RAM on that card, might have avoided the perceived need for a second card...
and separating games by formats is just plain foolish.
That's at least a little subjective. Are Sega CD and 32X games part of the Genesis library? A lot of people would say no.
There's a case to be made both ways. I'd be curious to see another table with the formats separated.
And don't get me wrong, you could make the exact same argument about the Satellaview. In the end, it's a complex situation, and I don't think there is really one single answer to what "is" the PC Engine.
The Satellaview is a bit complex, yes, but any game which ran over the service and used live voice streaming I'd absolutely say is on a separate platform, the Satellaview. It's trickier for the games which are just SNES games you could download to the Satellaview and didn't use any of the voice-streaming features, but if those games were not released on SNES cartridges or on the NP service, they really are on a separate platform. I know that listing sites like GameFAQs do not list the Satellaview separately from the SNES, but it really is a separate system and should be separate.
Of course, those sites also almost always merge the Nintendo DS and DSiWare games (they are absolutely separate consoles!), and never separate out dual-mode GB/GBC from GBC-only games in the GBC library, so they do that for multiple platforms. The TG16 and Turbo CD are separated there, but it is somewhat common online to see the TG16 and TCD mixed together, as if they're all the same platform... but you almost never see that with the Sega CD or 32X, those games are separated from the Genesis library. Why the double standard there? They're either all one platform or they're not! Addons like the TCD, SCD, 32X, or Satellaview are kind of their own platforms, and kind of part of their main system, so I can see why there's disagreement about this, but I absolutely think that addons are not exactly the same thing as the main platform. Since they require the main platform listing something showing all releases for a system plus its addons is reasonable, but the addons also should be separated out because they are NOT the same thing as the main system. They are each their own sub-system.
Unlike the Satellaview NP-exclusive releases clearly ARE a part of the SNES's library, but even there I think it's worth mentioning that those games were download service-only and did not release on standard cartridges; even now download-only and physical-release games are often distinguished between on modern consoles, after all, though all are of course games for those systems.
There's a difference between a time when a system is actually available, and a time before its release, you know... :p
That was my point, genius. Since the SF/N64 came out years after the PCE/PC-FX, it's no surprise that it was supported later.
That is somewhat true, but if you separate teh console and the addon.... The SNES was supported for the longest amount of time.
Learn to read. I was clearly talking about the time periods when the two systems were heavily supported; years where a comparative handful of games dribbled out don't matter, and separating games by formats is just plain foolish.
| Year | | PC Engine | % of Library | | Super Famicom | % of Library |
| 1987 | | 5 | .7% | | NA | NA |
| 1988 | | 23 | 3.3% | | NA | NA |
| 1989 | | 79 | 11.2% | | NA | NA |
| 1990 | | 132 | 18.7% | | 9 | .7% |
| 1991 | | 116 | 16.4% | | 44 | 3.4% |
| 1992 | | 126 | 17.8% | | 161 | 12.4% |
| 1993 | | 91 | 12.9% | | 229 | 17.7% |
| 1994 | | 84 | 11.9% | | 324 | 25% |
| 1995 | | 39 | 5.5% | | 322 | 24.9% |
| 1996 | | 8 | 1.1% | | 143 | 11% |
| 1997 | | 2 | .28% | | 28 | 2.2% |
| 1998 | | 0 | 0% | | 15 | 1.2% |
| 1999 | | 1 | .14% | | 16 | 1.2% |
| 2000 | | NA | NA | | 4 | .3% |
(numbers taken from pcedaisakusen, omitting unofficial games which have no posted release date, and from 'super chrontendo' database)
I repeat: the PCE had the bulk of its support parceled out over a longer period of time. Only 7% of its library came out after the PC-FX was released; similarly, only about 7% of the SF's library came out after the N64 was released.
Interesting chart, but as I say above, I definitely disagree about addons! No, addons are NOT the same thing as the console they are an addon to. 0% of the TG16/PCE library released after the PC-FX released; the system's last game released that month, and that was only the second game released for the system that year. The Turbo CD did have games that year, plenty of them, but that's not quite the same thing as the main system. But I get into this issue above, so just read that.
But we can't expect it of the PCE, eh? Are you intentionally being obtuse?
There's a difference between 1995 and 1997, though. In 1995, the first full year after the PC-FX, Saturn, and PS1 releases, there was still a large market for new 4th gen games. By 1997 though, the first full year after the N64's release, there was not nearly as much of that. The two situations are different because of Nintendo's later release date. You see this on the chart you posted -- 322 SNES games in 1995, 28 in 1997. This is mostly not because of the release of the not-too-successful-in-Japan N64, but simply because the 5th gen had taken over almost completely by that point. That wasn't yet true in 1995. I know that numbers like '1.2/1.3 million Saturns and PS1s sold by mid 1995' shows that in Japan the 5th gen got going a bit sooner than it did in the US -- it really wasn't until later 1996 and 1997 that the 5th gen got really hot in North America -- but still, the sheer number of new SNES games in Japan in '95 shows how important the 4th gen still was there.
I mean, the Xbox and Gamecube released well after the PS2, but they obviously weren't supported as long!
They received the bulk of their support up 'til the point that their replacements were released, same as the PCE and SNES. No surprise, really.
That ignores my point that the PS2 had FAR more releases in its later years than those systems, even though it released a year to 1 1/2 years earlier.
