Author Topic: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...  (Read 5955 times)

mickcris

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Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
« Reply #150 on: June 17, 2016, 10:23:03 AM »
the snes mini actually does not have svideo out of the box, only composite.

wildfruit

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Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
« Reply #151 on: June 17, 2016, 11:35:46 AM »

  (populous already adds 32k of ram)
Does it?

seieienbu

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Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
« Reply #152 on: June 17, 2016, 11:41:24 AM »
The snes mini also doesn't have RGB output without a mod.  The mini is further removed from the SNES than a Duo to a Duo R is certainly. 
Current want list:  Bomberman 93

Black Tiger

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Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
« Reply #153 on: June 17, 2016, 12:16:10 PM »
The snes mini also doesn't have RGB output without a mod.  The mini is further removed from the SNES than a Duo to a Duo R is certainly. 

The top loader NES also loses composite and rca audio output and has a pixelly jail bar down the picture.
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Black Tiger

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Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
« Reply #154 on: June 17, 2016, 12:17:35 PM »

  (populous already adds 32k of ram)
Does it?

No, he was just joking. There's no such thing as a ROMRAM card.
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Bonknuts

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Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
« Reply #155 on: June 17, 2016, 01:53:53 PM »
StarDust4Ever: So you're never going to own an actual PCE CD unit, right?

SamIAm

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Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
« Reply #156 on: June 17, 2016, 02:41:49 PM »
You mean like a $399 PlayStation VR that's really going to need you to upgrade your PlayStation 4 to the new 4.5 Neo model in order to run it properly?  :-k

No, you're right. Something like that could never happen these days!  :wink:

A) That still doesn't fracture it that much. The games are going to be compatible. Supposedly, one disc will play on your PS4 or your PS4.5 in 4K or VR, unless I am missing something.

B) We'll just see where this goes. Everyone is already predicting a big split if the compatibility thing doesn't work out. I didn't have to search long at all to find this comment.

Quote
Tierborn
Apr 1 2016 9AM

[This] is the PS5 .. dont like the marketing guys tell you different.

« Last Edit: June 17, 2016, 06:35:47 PM by SamIAm »

StarDust4Ever

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Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
« Reply #157 on: June 17, 2016, 02:54:26 PM »
StarDust4Ever: So you're never going to own an actual PCE CD unit, right?
I never said that. It's just not in the cards at this time.

SamIAm

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Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
« Reply #158 on: June 17, 2016, 03:45:03 PM »
I encourage you all to take a good look at some of the discussions going on around the internet about the PS4.5. The amount of "This is bullshit!" sentiment is through the roof.

People are being skeptical consumers. They're acting defensively and looking out for crazy schemes, and even PS4 gamers are not being loyal or reverent to Sony.

Contrast this with our attitude toward NEC and Hudson. We love them. We love them more than anyone in the English speaking world, and we make only the best assumptions. All is in the past, and all is forgiven.

If Hudson put the PC Engine logo on the SuperGrafx, then of course it's a PC Engine. It's Hudson's artistic technological vision. It's not a duck wearing a nametag that says "Cat".

Take a step back. From a consumer standpoint, the way Hudson carried out the Core Concept plan is kind of bullshit. One could say that by not calling the white-base-Hucard system a "Core", but rather marketing it as something whole when this big game-changing CD attachment was in the works from the beginning, Hudson was being dishonest. They didn't want people to be put off from buying the white-base system because it seemed like it might not be the focus of support. That's exactly why Sony is keeping a "4" in this new system of theirs.

We don't assume this kind of scheming with NEC and Hudson. Who knows? Maybe the hardware guys were just dreaming big, and the execs did what they thought they had to do to roll with it. Anyway, a lot of decisions were made solely to get your money.

I hope Japanese gamers were looking at the CD system and the SuperGrafx (the latter being pure insanity) with the same skepticism that gamers are today when they're looking at the PS4.5. Consumers should be smart. To quote George Carlin, whoever coined the phrase "Let the buyer beware" was probably bleeding from the a$$hole (Pro-click).
« Last Edit: June 17, 2016, 07:06:59 PM by SamIAm »

StarDust4Ever

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Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
« Reply #159 on: June 17, 2016, 04:24:19 PM »
Obviously the marketplace is not today what it was in the early 90s. Sony / Microsoft are trying desperately to 1up each other. People are jumping ship off the console bandwagon for mobile and Steam. Looking at the pricetag of these things, it's not just more beefier hardware but both companies coming out with their VR gear. Adjusted for inflation the cost of a VR unit plus the "v1.5" consoles is comparable to the CD attachment thingy from Hudson.

The intermittent hardware revision is probably more akin to the Supergrafx and the VR headsets more like the CD. The whole setup will ultimately cost $1000 or so, not far off from the $399 CD modules. A lot of customers are sticking with current hardware playing the wait and see game, and a lot of customers will upgrade and buy whatever comes out.

I think it's very real that MS/Sony are telling the truth initially that games will run on older hardware with lesser effects, resolution, framerate, polys, what have you. But as developers design their soft for the future platforms, gamers who refused to upgrade will eventually get a half baked experience that barely runs. For instance Xenoblade Chronicles and SNES VC games only work on New 3DS. Some fans may get butthurt over this or it may help generate new hardware sales.

Fact of the matter remains the CD PCe games only worked with the expensive add-ons. It wasn't some optional upgrade like the PS4/Xbone ".5" iterations. I would imagine those folks who didn't pony up for the CD unit ultimately got the much cheaper Super Famicom, however Hudson/NEC did cater to those who chose not to upgrade with the occasional late release Hucard game, some of which were fantastic. Bomberman '93 and '94, Bonk 3, Magical Chase, etc...

It will be interesting to see if VR takes off in a big way or becomes a failed or niche product like 3D TV. MS and Sony both seem desperate to expand their markets, and Nintendo just being Nintendo ignoring what their competition is doing.

TheOldMan

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Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
« Reply #160 on: June 17, 2016, 04:36:50 PM »
Quote
No, he was just joking. There's no such thing as a ROMRAM card.

That's news to me.
I just haven't figured out what to do with 512K RAM.

Punch

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Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
« Reply #161 on: June 17, 2016, 07:10:13 PM »
*whispers* 3d coprocessor...

SignOfZeta

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Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
« Reply #162 on: June 17, 2016, 08:22:22 PM »
There is no relationship to the way game systems were sold in the 80s and now.

Now people choosing a game system are motivated primally by one thing; the want to buy whichever system will eventually "win" the console war. Fear of being the kind of loser that got f*cked by the Dreamcast is what guides them.

Back then a lot of shit we are sick of now had yet to hit a wall. People were excited by new technology, not "apps" but shit that did stuff undreamed of months before. Walkmans were shrinking, Laserdisc was in full swing. Sony had their ES line of stereo gear. It was like how people are with cell phones now only with everything. Computers, home video, synthesizers, cars...digital watches. All that shit was changing fast and it was very exciting.

Now people want stability more than anything and while they are addicted enough to pay any price they are on the whole extremely cheap these days. So to pull a SuperGrafx would be total bullshit. The original SuperGrafx would have been just as much of a f*cking, you are right, but it's not just loyalty and rose tinted glasses. People really didn't care that much about it back then, not like now anyway. The PCE fans are people who did Betamax and projector TVs and always used Metal type cassettes. These people are proud of inconvinence, like how guys who are into Jeeps mainly just talk about all the shit they break on them. It proves your love. PlayStation 5 fans are the kind of people who have motion smoothing turned on on their TVs and bitch when Netflix raised its price $2. Passive consumer drones, pretty much. They don't need to be hardcore because there are a billion of them.

« Last Edit: June 17, 2016, 08:25:11 PM by SignOfZeta »

wilykat

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Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
« Reply #163 on: June 17, 2016, 10:38:14 PM »
Just a minor nitpick with Genesis stuff: you can't use 32x and Power Base Converter at the same time. With PCE, you could use any consoles with any CD and any peripheral and all games* would work.  Supergrafx even have a switch for some PCE game that might not like extra hardware.

*CD games still depend on certain system version, can't run Arcade game on a 3.0 card for example.

elmer

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Re: Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...
« Reply #164 on: June 18, 2016, 11:33:35 AM »
In the interest of fairness, I'll share a couple of things I've just read on the PC Engine's Japanese wikipedia page.
...
Also, the article talks about the Core Concept (コア構想), an official term that I know I've seen elsewhere. The idea, as we all basically know already, was to have one heart, or one driving "engine" at the center of a variety of peripherals including different media formats.

Yes, from day one, that meant the CD system.
...
If you want to think of the base-PCE-Hucard system, the SuperGrafx, the CD-ROM2, the Super System Card 3.0, the Duo and the Arcade Card as all fitting into one tight PC Engine concept, I wouldn't tell you you're wrong. Even I like to shorthand a lot of things as "PCE" when I'm typing up a message. However, if you feel that in reality, the systems and libraries naturally separate out into at least two very distinctive groups, Hucard and CD, and if you feel that there seems to be an honesty and simplicity from a user perspective to thinking of things on these terms...well, I'd agree with you.

That goes whether you're a western gamer in 2016 or a Japanese gamer in the late 80s/early 90s thinking to yourself "57,300 yen? 1000x storage capacity? Separate and exclusive game library? Pop idols and anime girls galore? Peripheral my ass; this CD thing's a console of its own!"

It's an "expandable" system ... with different levels of expansion, each providing more capabilities, and with each level having games that support those expanded capabilities.

That wasn't a hugely strange concept for a buyer to understand back in the 1980s.

Heck ... it shouldn't exactly be that strange of an idea to anyone that's ever played an RPG!  :wink:


You buy the base system, and then you just add on more and more bits as your desire and finances allow.

You're hung up on the whole "a console mustn't change or be expanded" mindset, probably because your personal memories of games really start at a time when the whole market, and marketing had stratified into distinct segments.

The early to late 1980's were the Wild West of home computer and videogame development. Anything could happen as people and companies experimented to see what could work, both technologically, and in terms of consumer acceptance.

Back then, a PC was just a Personal Computer, IBM hadn't wiped everyone else off the map.

It was an exciting time.  8)


Quote
Speaking of which, can-of-worms time: is the SuperGrafx really a PC Engine, too, or was it a separate console?

Can it play all the existing Core PC Engine games? Yes.

Can you plug it into all the existing Core PC Engine perihperals? Yes.

What is it internally? A PC Engine with an extra VDC controller.

So ... it's just another member of the expanable PC Engine system.

I can certainly accept the idea that people can/should consider the games for the diffent expansions as belonging to different "groups", but they're still part of the same "System".

Perhaps we're just getting hung up on semantics again.

Perhaps you'd be happier if I said "Concept" instead of "System"?

But that's not really the right use of language ... a Concept is a just an idea, but a System applies both to an idea, and to a realization of that idea.


Quote
Anyway, in conclusion, rather than inducting a newbie by telling him to think of the PC Engine as being more like 1.5-ish systems and having at least two different libraries, I think I'll just start by telling him it's all a goddamn mess and he better brace himself.

I think it's pretty simple.

You can buy in at various levels of capability, and you can expand your original purchase.

That applies to the CD, the Super System Card, and the Arcade Card.


I love the elegance of the console concept, too, and I think it's a pity that it seems in danger of breaking down.

Like any industry, everything has matured now, the excitement and unknowns have gone away, and people have set expectations of how things should work and be marketed.

From what I see, the "console" concept is still alive ... in the iPhone and Android worlds.

The idea of, and need for, dedicated videogame consoles has pretty much passed away.

20 years ago, consoles had superior game-playing hardware to personal computers.

That's not been the case for a while.

And now Personal Computers themselves are morphing from being productivity devices on desks, into being mobile entertainment/consumption devices with integrated telephones.

From what I can, most consumers are exceedingly happy with that, because they didn't have the time or interest in being slaves to keeping their computers maintained and up-to-date.


A) That still doesn't fracture it that much. The games are going to be compatible. Supposedly, one disc will play on your PS4 or your PS4.5 in 4K or VR, unless I am missing something.

I think that you're overlooking the commercial realities of development.

It's poor economics to target such different resolutions/capabilities ... which means that what-will-happen is what usually happens in those cases.

You'll get simple up-rezzing tricks to make things look better on the new version, and it'll all be a bit of a disappointment to the people that pay extra for the new versions.

The whole VR thing has so many practical limitations at the moment, that I fully expect it to be just like all the 3D-TV hype of a few years ago.

I could be wrong ... but I certainly won't be an early-adopter.


Take a step back. From a consumer standpoint, the way Hudson carried out the Core Concept plan is kind of bullshit. One could say that by not calling the white-base-Hucard system a "Core", but rather marketing it as something whole when this big game-changing CD attachment was in the works from the beginning, Hudson was being dishonest. They didn't want people to be put off from buying the white-base system because it seemed like it might not be the focus of support.

Errrr ... what???

AFAIK Hudson supported the original PC Engine with HuCard games for as long as it was economically possible to do so, and well passed the time that most consumers had already abandoned them.

CD games started out as an "extra" and remained that way until the SFC/SNES blew the entire HuCard market out of the water in 1991 ... and then Hudson still kept on releasing HuCards.

As the HuCard market dried up, they had the SuperCDROM available as an upgrade for anyone with a core PC Engine that wanted to stay with them and enjoy the experience of CD games.

I don't see any dishonesty, quite the opposite.