Why did the SuperGrafx fail so miserably?

[Black Tiger]

As long as we're talking theoretical potential, why worry about the Super CD's memory when you could have Supergrafx Arcade CDs?  A full 16Mb with additional sprite and background layers?  I think that sounds pretty sick.

Because that was from four years in the future. Only CD2 games existed when the SuperGrafx launched.

[Arkhan]

Necromancer, you realize that comparing NES/Atari2600 to HuCards is a bit flawed, right?

Ever notice how there's a plethora of new NES/Genesis/Atari 2600 homebrew cart games released, and not one single PCE one (Until Atlantean comes out)?

It's because the process of making an actual HuCard, start to finish, complete with the slim-as-f*ck technology required to get it onto that little bit of space as opposed to a giant board that fits in a giant cartridge is costly, on top of difficult.   It was more costly back then, and is more costly now.    You're cramming more hardware than an NES cartridge into what, like 25% of the space?

It becomes less and less practical to continue to do this when you have a much cheaper option in CDs (Like I said already). 

And please don't argue that everyone switched from HuCARDs to CDs because big hueys were "too hard", as they obviously switched to CDs because they were far cheaper to produce regardless of size (many games made post '92 could easy fit in an 8Mb cart) and likely had smaller minimum order sizes.  Had the CD add-on not been as successful (causing poor sales of CD games vs. HuCARDs), more devs would've stuck with the format and we would've seen more 16Mb+ sized carts.

Doesn't this contradict what you said a few posts ago:

Of course mappers are needed for larger sizes, but who gives a shit?  The NES had mappers galore and the SNES used all sorts of chips that were often a hell of a lot more sophisticated and expensive than a mapper.  Big deal.  It's not like a mapper cost $50.

Bigger rom sizes obviously cost more to manufacture, but that's hardly a trait specific to hueys; far more costly than the rom chips themselves was creating the content to fill 'em.  And CDs were way cheaper to make (even back then), but the cost of a banana was even lower and just as relevant.

You downplay the relevancy of CD costs in one post, but make it pretty much the most relevant thing ever in another post...?


and, you're basically just repeating what I already said, anyways.    Why would anyone want to waste the time producing a SuperGrafx game when they can probably make a better game for SCD, and sell it to a far wider audience, for less costs.




and, as a bit of an example:

It costs 1000$ to make 500 CDs (Insanity), complete in jewel cases, with booklets, and the turnaround is 2 weeks.

It costs 1000$ (More, probably) to make like, 50 HuCards (Atlantean), WITHOUT mappers, with manuals, and the turnaround time is holyshitforever.

So, I wouldn't downplay the cost of HuCard manufacturing so much.

EDIT:
and another good example would be comparing N64 and PS1.   Look which one kicked ass, and which one had overpriced games that didn't even really compete well?

CD > Card. 

[Black Tiger]

HuCards may have been more challenging to manufacture and could potentially cost more with or without mappers for the same company than traditional carts. But HuCards weren't being made by a relatively small company like Sega or Nintendo. It should have been cheaper for a company like NEC to make them than it would be for others. They also would have been able to stengthen them in any number of ways we might not even think of, if that really became an issue. We know now from things like various converters that a HuCard could have had a huge raised chunk on it. They may not have been as sexy as flat cards, but they would have gotten the job done.

But even if large sized HuCards did cost more than other carts, so what? SNES games cost more than Genesis games. The 8 & 16-bit generations were the craziest for stuff that got crammed into carts. Mappers, cpus, sound chips, entire Famicom converters, batteries, multi-player taps, internal and external clocks, additional cart ports, etc... all sold inside of every variation of cost increasing decorations like various colors of opaque and translucent plastic, metalic finish, unique shapes, crazy labels, etc. They were the generations of "ballin'" carts. Carts were often made more expensive for reasons that did not improve game content and people bought them up at any prices.

I agree that the PCE was better off with CDs becoming the dominant format. But no one's arguing against that. In the alternate reality in which the PCE or SuperGrafx didn't have CD games, HuCard games comparable to SNES and Genesis cart games would have been totally doable and the notion that the lack of huge HuCards in this reality proves otherwise, is ignoring the success of the CD format that limited HuCard projects to smaller sizes once CD sales dwarfed HuCard sales.

[Necromancer]

Necromancer, you realize that comparing NES/Atari2600 to HuCards is a bit flawed, right?

Not at all.  In a discussion about mappers (among other chips) being too expensive and too complicated to utilize, both in manufacturing and programming, it's entirely relevant to point out that companies had been successfully dealing with those issues for years, and they continued to do so with the SNES.  Why would the mapper be such an insurmountable obstacle in a HuCARD yet a non-issue everywhere else?

Ever notice how there's a plethora of new NES/Genesis/Atari 2600 homebrew cart games released, and not one single PCE one (Until Atlantean comes out)?

It's because the process of making an actual HuCard, start to finish, complete with the slim-as-f*ck technology required to get it onto that little bit of space as opposed to a giant board that fits in a giant cartridge is costly, on top of difficult.

Your difficulties in hand building HuCARDs 25 years later isn't even remotely relevant.  Do you really think NEC didn't know what they were doing and struggled to make hueys?  Bitch, please.

It was more costly back then, and is more costly now.    You're cramming more hardware than an NES cartridge into what, like 25% of the space?

I doubt the difference to Hudson/NEC was all that great back in the day.  If it was exponentially more expensive to go small, why in the hell would they have championed the format repeatedly?

Doesn't this contradict what you said a few posts ago:
....
You downplay the relevancy of CD costs in one post, but make it pretty much the most relevant thing ever in another post...?

There's no contradiction, as it's two different arguments.  The earlier quote is about the capabilities and cost of the HuCARD relative to SNES or Genny carts; the fact that CDs are cheaper than HuCARDs doesn't matter because they're also cheaper than SNES and Genny carts.  The later quote is about why they abandoned the HuCARD when they did, saying it was due to their cost compared to CDs and that the CD had been adopted by enough of the user base that it wasn't a hindrance to sales; it surely wasn't because of their cost compared to SNES or Genny carts or because it was impossible to make something like Xanadu or Sapphire on a HuCARD.

and, you're basically just repeating what I already said, anyways.    Why would anyone want to waste the time producing a SuperGrafx game when they can probably make a better game for SCD, and sell it to a far wider audience, for less costs.

If you mean making a game now, you're arguing something very different.

[Arkhan]

 

Not at all.  In a discussion about mappers (among other chips) being too expensive and too complicated to utilize, both in manufacturing and programming, it's entirely relevant to point out that companies had been successfully dealing with those issues for years, and they continued to do so with the SNES.  Why would the mapper be such an insurmountable obstacle in a HuCARD yet a non-issue everywhere else?

Not insurmountable.  Just more costly, and complicated.  It's a size thing.  There isn't a lot of real estate to work with on a HuCard, like we keep saying.  Fabricating the little circuit sheet isn't as simple as bashing out a green PCB that's the size of a slice of bread.

One single chip in an SNES cartridge basically takes up the entire real estate that a HuCard has to work with for everything.

It's a different issue than all of the cartridge goons.   They basically have it easy by comparison.

NEC tackled it with PCE and kicked a lot of ass with it, but it doesn't change the fact that it costs more money, and is more difficult to produce a large game on a card than it is on a CD.

Because CD hardware had already caught on by the time SuperGrafx was a thing, nobody probably saw the value in spending extra money/effort on a more expensive production operation for what will either be an inferior or on-par title.   Like I've said like twice now.

Your difficulties in hand building HuCARDs 25 years later isn't even remotely relevant.  Do you really think NEC didn't know what they were doing and struggled to make hueys?  Bitch, please.

More relevant than you think. It serves as proof as to how challenging, resource intensive, and complicated it was for NEC to do it in the first place.

I doubt the difference to Hudson/NEC was all that great back in the day.  If it was exponentially more expensive to go small, why in the hell would they have championed the format repeatedly?

There was probably a noticeable difference in the form of money on a spreadsheet. 

Why did the champion the format repeatedly? Because CDs were not in play originally.  They won the size/efficiency war with HuCards, and did it again with CDs.

They probably hoped that SGX would catch on in cartridge form and then have a repeat life-span of PCE where it goes Card--->CD--->\o/, but, again, as CCovell's post shows, nobody really appeared to see much value in switching formats since CD has proven to be superior, and more people have PCEs than SGX.

There's no contradiction, as it's two different arguments.  The earlier quote is about the capabilities and cost of the HuCARD relative to SNES or Genny carts; the fact that CDs are cheaper than HuCARDs doesn't matter because they're also cheaper than SNES and Genny carts.  The later quote is about why they abandoned the HuCARD when they did, saying it was due to their cost compared to CDs and that the CD had been adopted by enough of the user base that it wasn't a hindrance to sales; it surely wasn't because of their cost compared to SNES or Genny carts or because it was impossible to make something like Xanadu or Sapphire on a HuCARD.

HuCards cost more to manufacture than an SNES or Genesis cart.   Hence CDs being a nice power play.   If it were just as cheap and easy to manufacture HuCards as you seem to think, don't you think everyone would've jumped at the format?   They didn't, because it's a pretty specialized manufacturing process.

They also cost more to manufacture than CDs in general, again, a nice power play by NEC.  Superior storage, at much less cost.

If you mean making a game now, you're arguing something very different.

No, I mean back then. 


I'm done repeating myself though.   This entire line of discussion has already taken place, like 2 or 3 years ago.

[Necromancer]

You're confused.  I wasn't arguing HuCARD vs. CD  -  it's HuCARD vs. other cartridges, namely SNES and Genny carts.

Why did the champion the format repeatedly? Because CDs were not in play originally.

Ignore CDs for a moment.  My point was that if the small format of hueys was so hard and expensive for NEC to produce, they would've instead designed the systems to use "normal" cartridges like everyone else or at least charged more for their games instead of the same amount or less.

NEC tackled it with PCE and kicked a lot of ass with it, but it doesn't change the fact that it costs more money, and is more difficult to produce a large game on a card than it is on a CD.

The same is true for the SNES and Genny carts.  The CD was always the cheaper option no matter what the rom size was, but this has no bearing on cartridge comparisons.

Because CD hardware had already caught on by the time SuperGrafx was a thing...

With only 13 CDs released through the month of the SGX's launch (vs. 77 huey), I wouldn't say the CD had exactly been fully embraced.

No, I mean back then. 

The SCD didn't exist until two years later, so that just makes no sense.  The original CD's 1Mb o' ram is pretty limiting (more so for some genres than others) and the installed base of CD users in '89 wasn't huge, so I can see why a dev would go with a HuCARD (SGX or not).

I'm done repeating myself though.

Good.  You don't know what the f*ck you're arguing for/against anyway. 

[Arkhan]

It's funny you say I don't know what I'm arguing for/against.   I don't think you really do either, because this discussion is a mess, lol.

I'm not talking about NEC/Hudson's cost production really.   Again, like CCovell's thing mentions, I'm talking about other companies making games.  They're the relevant piece of the puzzle unless you want a world where only NEC/Hudson makes software.

The cost that is negligible for NEC since they're the manufacturers, but it may not have been for other groups.    The cost has to be eaten somewhere. 

Yes, it is harder/more costly to manufacture than a SNES / NES / Genesis cart.   But, where they lose out there (producing the board), they most likely gain back in other areas of production so that it evens out.     Especially when you consider they probably gave zero f*cks since the console itself was cheap to produce and they were rolling around in money from sales. 

Anyway:
A SGX game would certainly cost more than a regular HuCard due to the expectations that come with 2x sprites and an extra BG layer.  (ROM/Mapper/Etc).

So, if CDs are already offering a better cost to size ratio for companies as they branch out into more intense games, why would they want to lose sales money on a console that takes more effort to develop for, and who's future is not exactly established? 

Developers were made aware of SCD before it actually was introduced... so they would have time to develop new games in a sane timeframe for the lifecycle of the system.  You're looking at things from a consumer standpoint instead of a development standpoint.

Do you think software houses didn't get their hands on SCD technology, and the SGX until they were available in a store? 


So, before the SGX was on the table, I bet everyone was already aware of the SCD technology and thought "well, what the f*cks the point?".

EDIT: One of my sentences was jumbled up.

[A Black Falcon]

Much like the 32X the SuperGrafx should never have existed, but given that it DOES, it'd have been nice to see them stick with it and release the Duo as a system with a built-in SuperGrafx...

[Necromancer]

You still don't get it and want to argue about CDs being better when nobody is claiming anything else.  Scroll up and read Black Tiger's post: the point is that HuCARDs were comparable to SNES and Genny carts.  Period.

[Arkhan]

You still don't get it and want to argue about CDs being better when nobody is claiming anything else.  Scroll up and read Black Tiger's post: the point is that HuCARDs were comparable to SNES and Genny carts.  Period.

You still don't get that there can be MULTIPLE LINES OF DISCUSSION.   It's not all arguing.

And, no, HuCards aren't comparable to SNSE/Genesis carts.  The manufacturing cost is higher.  So, CDs being in existence immediately becomes relevant because...

The original point of the topic is "Why did the SGX fail", and the answer I gave in this thread, and in the thread last time it came up is the same:

"CD Games"


you downplayed their importance a few times now, especially when you said "oh well CD hadn't caught on yet" and "Super CD wasn't out yet", etc.

This sort of thing implies you don't think CD was really better at the time.

[Necromancer]

Try reading for context.  The discussion you jumped into between tuoko and I was clearly about HuCARDs vs. other carts and not the original topic.

And keep dreaming about HuCARDs costing substantially more to make.  A buck or two more, sure, but not enough to matter.

[Arkhan]

when you don't use quotes 100% of the time, the context in this discussion can be a bit ambiguous.   

also, 1 or 2$ adds up.   

and, not enough to matter for what?   For HuCard vs. any other cartridge, or HuCard vs. CD?

For HuCard vs. any other cartridge, it really doesn't f*cking matter at all because it's the only possible option.

...which is why I am mostly talking about NEC hardware relative to itself, where the costs do matter.

[A Black Falcon]

when you don't use quotes 100% of the time, the context in this discussion can be a bit ambiguous.

Quotes are good.

also, 1 or 2$ adds up.   

Yeah, companies definitely care about every penny!

[TheOldMan]

And keep dreaming about HuCARDs costing substantially more to make.  A buck or two more, sure, but not enough to matter.

Please explain for me what exactly this "buck or two more" covers, and in what time period.

1) Does that cover the cost of a larger ROM?
2) Does that include a mapper and/or other chips?
3) Does that include re-tooling costs to produce a new circuit board design?
4) How about the costs for manufacturing line changes ?

And in what dollars are you measuring. Things were monetarily less expensive in the 1990's. It's not fair to quote prices without adjusting for the time period. I sure can't buy a gallon of gas for $1.50 now, so your 1$ then would be $2-3 now...

companies definitely care about every penny!

Yes they do. So even $0.10 would matter to the bottom line profit.
No company will make a more expensive product unles they can recoup the difference in sales volume.
.......................................................................................
Also, for the record: Yes, I know street fighter is mostly empty under the bump. They had to do something to make it look like a larger capacity card. However, it does have 4 seperate chips on it. So there is more than 1 chip cost involved.

As for why I think the sgfx failed: basically, no one wanted it. Not consumers, not devs, possibly not even NEC. It got caught in a vicious circle: No one wanted to do games for it, because it didn't have a large enough user base. No one wanted to buy it because there were no good games for it. And NEC wasn't seeing a profit from it anytime in the near future, due to new machines from Nintendo and Sony on the horizon...

[Black Tiger]

also, 1 or 2$ adds up.   

Yeah, companies definitely care about every penny!

Which is why publishers shunned the Nintendo 64.

For HuCard vs PCE CD games that matters, but for HuCard as a viable format in general at the time, it was already common for Nintendo and Sega carts to carry all kinds of extras that add up and Nintendo games in general tended to be more expensive and many retailed for tens of dollars more (here, they got up to 50% - 100% more expensive). Worse case scenario, HuCards with mappers might cost as much as regular SNES games.