So whats the deal with the arcade card?

[BigusSchmuck]

Curious, I know it was made for Neo Geo ports and the ever so awesome Sapphire, but whats the story behind it? Why did NEC make so few games for it and what made them stop developing more games like Sapphire? Yeah I know they had another system (PC-FX), but come on, this thing could have easily competed with the likes of the next gen consoles at the time! Makes one wonder...

[nat]

Why did NEC make so few games for it

Well, it had three or four times (or five or six times if you count the Super CD/Arcade CD hybrids) as many games as one of NEC's bona fide consoles (the SuperGrafx), so "few" is certainly subjective.

But I think you answered your own question; they had the PC-FX. The Duo was getting phased out in 1995/1996.

[SignOfZeta]

The AC didn't really take off because it was expensive and it was the end of the PCE's life. By the time it was released the user base had been fragmented from so many expensive-ass upgrades that only the most hardcore remained. Most of the good games for it were Neo stuff, and with the Neo CD out...they didn't make much sense.

And then there was the FX and the Saturn. And the fact that a lot of the famous PCE-era devs were going out of business.

The good/bad/weird news is that as pathetic as the AC selection was, it's still better than the FX library.

So...Super CD is where its at, basically.

[thesteve]

the fx has a few great games, but i agree, the acd has at least as many great games

[T2KFreeker]

All I know is that I thought Strider and Art of Fighting was cool as Hell when it came out. Most people hated Strider, but I liked it.

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, I was extremely impressed with AoF. These days you can get better ports of all the Neo games somewhere else, probably on PS2. Hell, you can get the actual MVS carts for most of these games for less than $15.

[Edmond Dantes]

Yeah, all of SNK's major fighting games are on the PS2 as part of various "anthologies" and "battle archives."

I still bought Garou Densetsu 2 for my PC-E though just because I don't always have the PS2 hooked up, and its great to have another version of a game you're gonna play that much.  Which is also why I own three different ports of Street Fighter II Champion Edition.

Getting back to the topic, I think the deal with the arcade card was NEC was trying to make their console able to compete, spec-wise, with the Super Famicom which was the reigning champion at the time.  And perhaps it simply didn't work as well as expected, which is why they pushed the PC-FX instead... which also didn't perform as expected.

[thesteve]

games like zenki prove the FX is quite capable of producing arcade quality games.
we just need more for it.
saphire proved the arcade card as well

[SignOfZeta]

The FX hardware might have been a bit lopsided, but there was nothing really wrong with it. It easily could have done something like Sapphire or Fatal Fury Special or Kaze Kiri or Rondo, it just didn't.

All Zenki proves is how all beat-em-ups pale in comparison to the Kunio series.

[thesteve]

ok i dont know Kunio.
as to the genre i not a big fan of beat-em-up's.
i was however impressed with how fluidly the animations and game play went together, and the use of paralax.

[T2KFreeker]

Hmm, I had forgotten that Fatal Fury 2 was released on the Arcade Card. I still need to see that one in action.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Hmm, I had forgotten that Fatal Fury 2 was released on the Arcade Card. I still need to see that one in action.

I could make a video.

I have it, but it would be a crappy video.  AKA: me holding a digital camera and hitting record while I play one handed.

[BigusSchmuck]

My brother got me a arcade card for around 2,000 yen, waiting for it to get here. I wonder if the chopsado converter will work well with it?

[T2KFreeker]

Hmm, I had forgotten that Fatal Fury 2 was released on the Arcade Card. I still need to see that one in action.

I could make a video.

I have it, but it would be a crappy video.  AKA: me holding a digital camera and hitting record while I play one handed.

Well, I could at least see it, so yeah, that would be really cool.

[Nazi NecroPhile]

There's always youtube.

[Joe Redifer]

I wish they would have focused on the Arcade CD instead of the PC FX.  More people would have upgraded if they kept putting good games on there, but nobody was going to buy a PC FX because it didn't have any good games.  I'd buy a SuperGrafx before I'd consider a PC FX.  At least the SuperGrafx has games I want to play and isn't full of FMV anime garbage.  The PC FX is a console that had appeal only to hardcore anime geeks in Japan.  It never had a chance.  Dumb ol' NEC (or whoever).

[c0ldb33r]

The AC didn't really take off because it was expensive and it was the end of the PCE's life.

How much was it originally? I got mine a few years ago loose and I don't recall that it was pricey.

I have it, but it would be a crappy video.  AKA: me holding a digital camera and hitting record while I play one handed.

Man get ahold of yourself. Yeah, Mai is hot but it's just a videogame!

[T2KFreeker]

The AC didn't really take off because it was expensive and it was the end of the PCE's life.

How much was it originally? I got mine a few years ago loose and I don't recall that it was pricey.

I have it, but it would be a crappy video.  AKA: me holding a digital camera and hitting record while I play one handed.

Man get ahold of yourself. Yeah, Mai is hot but it's just a videogame!

DAMN!!!

Nice to see you c0ldb33r!

[T2KFreeker]

Oh wait, I just saw that World Heroes 2 was on the Arcade Card as well? What the Hell? Was it good? I'd play that all day!

[Edmond Dantes]

I dunno about World Heroes, but I'm able to compare Fatal Fury 2 to the version on the Playstation 2's Battle Archives release.

The only difference so far is that the shadows flicker and there are load times.  Oh, and you have to play with a PC Engine controller.  That's it.  It seems to be a solid port.

[SignOfZeta]

I wish they would have focused on the Arcade CD instead of the PC FX.  More people would have upgraded if they kept putting good games on there, but nobody was going to buy a PC FX because it didn't have any good games.  I'd buy a SuperGrafx before I'd consider a PC FX.  At least the SuperGrafx has games I want to play and isn't full of FMV anime garbage.  The PC FX is a console that had appeal only to hardcore anime geeks in Japan.  It never had a chance.  Dumb ol' NEC (or whoever).

I've gotten to the point where I can't even tell if you are trolling or not. I think certain sentences in there are and others aren't? I have no idea.

The AC didn't really take off because it was expensive and it was the end of the PCE's life.

How much was it originally? I got mine a few years ago loose and I don't recall that it was pricey.

I have it, but it would be a crappy video.  AKA: me holding a digital camera and hitting record while I play one handed.

Man get ahold of yourself. Yeah, Mai is hot but it's just a videogame!

I think it was about $120 or so for the Duo, $20 or so more for the Pro. If anyone wanted to play Fatal Fury Special that bad they could just buy the Super Famicom version. At that point basically every gamer in Japan had a SFC, and the SFC actually had enough buttons on the standard controller.

[Edmond Dantes]

Yeah, but wasn't the Super Famicom port exceedingly bad?  In general, The Super Famicom really wasn't a good console for fighting games (save for supposedly having the best home ports of Mortal Kombat 2 and 3, though why you'd even care in that case is a good question).

Though, RPGs are big in Japan, and the SNES had a metric ton of those.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Who says im looking at Mai!?


and, PCE had maor RPGs than the super famicom.

[GohanX]

Yeah, but wasn't the Super Famicom port exceedingly bad? 

The SFC version was a pretty good port, but it was pretty obvious that it was a port to lower quality hardware. From what I've been told the PCE version is damn near arcade perfect, but I haven't played it myself.

[PunkCryborg]

I could make a video.

I have it, but it would be a crappy video.  AKA: me holding a digital camera and hitting record while I play one handed.

couldn't you just set the camera on something?

[BigusSchmuck]

And I thought I was the only one who had a thing for Mai. ^^ Anyway, kind of curious now which looks better, pc engine fx games or arcade card games?

[geise]

World Heros 2 is so close to the neo geo it's kinda scary.  They did an awesome job with the Neo Geo ports.  It would've been nice if the arcade card received more love by Konami or Capcom.  Some CPS1 ports would've been quite nice.  I know Keranu could give two shits though since it's Capcom. 

[c0ldb33r]

I always thought it was neat that they included the zooming in Art of Fighting. They couldn't do it in the Genesis or SNES versions.

[Nazi NecroPhile]

I think it was about $120 or so for the Duo, $20 or so more for the Pro.

I know memory wasn't cheap, but was it really that pricey?  The 32x had more memory for a similar price, so either Sega priced it knowing they have to sell many games for each 32x just to break even or NEC priced the ACs to turn a tidy profit.

[geise]

I don't remember there being that big of a price difference backthen.  Not by $100 anyways.

[T2KFreeker]

Yeah, but wasn't the Super Famicom port exceedingly bad? 

The SFC version was a pretty good port, but it was pretty obvious that it was a port to lower quality hardware. From what I've been told the PCE version is damn near arcade perfect, but I haven't played it myself.

Actually, the Super Famicom/Super Nes port of Fatal Fury was horrid! It really was about as bad as you could get for a 16bit port. Funny as it was, the CART version of the game for the SNES had load times, the framerate was god awful, and the sound was terrible. The Genesis version actually blew it out of the water. Before anyone really get's in a huff about the Genesis VS SNES argument, realize that this was not the SNES's fault, but rather that Takara really had no clue at the time and didn't utilize the SNES hardware resulting in a terrible port. The sound in the Genesis version isn't the greatest either, but the framerate was much smoother and the characters retained way more of their animation frames. Check it out.

SNES:

Genesis:

[SignOfZeta]

We're talking about Fatal Fury Special, the third game in the series. Fatal Fury 1 wasn't even made for PCE.

The SFC/SNES version of FFS is fine. It's letterboxed, like almost all 16-bit home ports were, and the sound is really "SNES"; so if you hate that muffled reverb, stay away. IMO it's substantially better than the Sega CD version, which suffered from severally cut animation.

As for the SNES not being a good system for fighters...excluding the Neo Geo, what was better? It was the best system for fighters for some time. The Genesis was by far the worst fighter system of the 16-bit years. The PCE was a fun distraction since it had the original home games like Flash Hiders, Advanced VG, and Asuka. It also had the best Neo Ports, but only for about a year. After that SNK stopped porting to concentrate on promoting the Neo CD, which didn't work, and by then everything was on Saturn.

The SNES had the most up to date home versions of Street Fighter II...except for when SFII' was released on PCE, which became irrelevant once SFII' Turbo came out a month later for 2,800 yen less. It also had Fighter History (two of them), Gundam Wing: Endless Dual, Turtles Tourniment Fighters, the Ranma games (one of the three was actually good) more Neo ports than the other systems, and a bunch of fanboy shite ranging from Mortal Combat to Pretty Fighter.

[SignOfZeta]

Regarding the price of the AC. Original sale price of the Duo version was ¥12,800, the Pro version was ¥17,800.

For some reference, most PCE games at the time were between ¥4800 and ¥6800. Most SFC games were ¥9,800, a Square RPG like Chrono Trigger was usually ¥12,800.

Back then an American dollar would buy you about 107 yen. Those were the days!

So at the time, straight up, the Duo ver was about $119, the Pro version about $166. Of course it wasn't possible to buy anything from Japan without getting slapped with a huge markup back then, so it would have been more. It wasn't long before they could be had at a discount or for used prices though, so $120 or so for the (much more common) Duo version was about average, from what I remember.

So basically a guy in Japan could buy the SFC version for $100, or a ACD+game+Avenue 6 for around $220. I liked Fatal Fury quite a bit, but I went with the Nintendo version.

[BigusSchmuck]

So basically a guy in Japan could buy the SFC version for $100, or a ACD+game+Avenue 6 for around $220. I liked Fatal Fury quite a bit, but I went with the Nintendo version 

Still cheaper than buying a Neogeo and the game at the time. I remember Fatal Fury 1 for the snes, pretty terrible considering only player 2 can play as the bosses and only in vs mode.
I wonder what the arcade card into looks like, guess I will find out when I get it...

[Edmond Dantes]

I wonder what the arcade card into looks like, guess I will find out when I get it...

The Arcade Card doesn't have a special startup screen.  It looks just like a regular system card.

Thought you should be warned.  At first, I thought mine was broken.

[SignOfZeta]

So basically a guy in Japan could buy the SFC version for $100, or a ACD+game+Avenue 6 for around $220. I liked Fatal Fury quite a bit, but I went with the Nintendo version 

Still cheaper than buying a Neogeo and the game at the time. I remember Fatal Fury 1 for the snes, pretty terrible considering only player 2 can play as the bosses and only in vs mode.

Wasn't that how the Neo version worked? I remember you could only play as the three bros in one player mode. You could play two players and team up against a boss. That part was rad.

Now that I think about it, I really need to buy that MVS cart. It had the crazy arm wrestling thing in it too.

[BigusSchmuck]

Wasn't that how the Neo version worked? I remember you could only play as the three bros in one player mode. You could play two players and team up against a boss. That part was rad.

Now that I think about it, I really need to buy that MVS cart. It had the crazy arm wrestling thing in it too.

No took that out in the snes version, what I meant to say in vs mode, player 1 can be the 3 main characters only and player 2 can be the bosses. No teaming up, I was one of those unfortunates to own the old snes cart....  Anyway to get back on topic, anyone thought of doing some homebrew stuff with the arcade card? Might be interesting to see what people could come up with...

[Edmond Dantes]

The arm wrestling bonus rounds are in the PS2 version as well, if you don't wanna go through the trouble of getting a consolized MVS.

[Liquid Snake]

can anyone list complete AC games?

[BigusSchmuck]

http://www.pcecp.com/index.php?mode=catalog&action=normalsearch
and
http://www.pcecp.com/index.php?mode=catalog&action=search

[SignOfZeta]

The arm wrestling bonus rounds are in the PS2 version as well, if you don't wanna go through the trouble of getting a consolized MVS.

I already have an MVS (it's not heavy, it's my brother), which makes this ommision unforgivable.

[nat]

Here's the link I post up every couple months whenever this question comes up:

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=3547.msg51364#msg51364

[Supremo_Lagarto]

Curious, I know it was made for Neo Geo ports and the ever so awesome Sapphire, but whats the story behind it? Why did NEC make so few games for it and what made them stop developing more games like Sapphire? Yeah I know they had another system (PC-FX), but come on, this thing could have easily competed with the likes of the next gen consoles at the time! Makes one wonder...

The division of NEC that sold the Duo basically went bankrupt shortly after the Arcade card was released. That is why there were no more games for it. End of story.

[SignOfZeta]

Curious, I know it was made for Neo Geo ports and the ever so awesome Sapphire, but whats the story behind it? Why did NEC make so few games for it and what made them stop developing more games like Sapphire? Yeah I know they had another system (PC-FX), but come on, this thing could have easily competed with the likes of the next gen consoles at the time! Makes one wonder...

The division of NEC that sold the Duo basically went bankrupt shortly after the Arcade card was released. That is why there were no more games for it. End of story.

No doubt. With all the money they pumped into the KOF '95 port and Sapphire's real-time 3D engine, how could they make a profit?

Seriously, this is not a true statement.

[Supremo_Lagarto]

Curious, I know it was made for Neo Geo ports and the ever so awesome Sapphire, but whats the story behind it? Why did NEC make so few games for it and what made them stop developing more games like Sapphire? Yeah I know they had another system (PC-FX), but come on, this thing could have easily competed with the likes of the next gen consoles at the time! Makes one wonder...

The division of NEC that sold the Duo basically went bankrupt shortly after the Arcade card was released. That is why there were no more games for it. End of story.

No doubt. With all the money they pumped into the KOF '95 port and Sapphire's real-time 3D engine, how could they make a profit?

Seriously, this is not a true statement.

I didn't say NEC went bankrupt, I said a small DIVISION of NEC (NEC Avenue). The Duo really was discontinued in 1994. Most of those games came out...

...in 1994.


Not a coincidence (companies don't design a lot of games for discontinued systems).

NEC itself is a huge company and has been for decades. They pulled the plug on the console division because it was no longer as profitable as their other divisions.


This is just reality.

[SignOfZeta]

A division of a company can't go bankrupt, only separate companies. They can be killed off or whatever, but bankruptcy is something that effects the entire company. What division are you talking about exactly?

There were dozens of games released after 1994 and almost none of them are Arcade Card requisite. This is because developers wanted to make any PCE game they released to have maximum compatibility with the existing userbase, and with poor ACD sales it made the most sense to release games as SCDs.

[BigusSchmuck]

If only NEC spent more time with the Arcade Card vs PC-FX things may have turned out different. Or better yet have a upgrade that made your PC engine into a PC-FX. Could have been interesting...

[nat]

Curious, I know it was made for Neo Geo ports and the ever so awesome Sapphire, but whats the story behind it? Why did NEC make so few games for it and what made them stop developing more games like Sapphire? Yeah I know they had another system (PC-FX), but come on, this thing could have easily competed with the likes of the next gen consoles at the time! Makes one wonder...

The division of NEC that sold the Duo basically went bankrupt shortly after the Arcade card was released. That is why there were no more games for it. End of story.

No doubt. With all the money they pumped into the KOF '95 port and Sapphire's real-time 3D engine, how could they make a profit?

Seriously, this is not a true statement.

I didn't say NEC went bankrupt, I said a small DIVISION of NEC (NEC Avenue). The Duo really was discontinued in 1994. Most of those games came out...

Where are you getting this information? Someone has sadly led you up the garden path.

NEC Avenue was not responsible for the Duo. NEC Avenue was an in-house software dev team that mostly handled arcade ports. NEC Avenue never went bankrupt, they were expanded into (or dissolved, and then integrated into, depending on who you believe) NEC Interchannel.

Either way, the NEC Avenue->NEC Interchannel mutation didn't happen until 1996 so I'm not really sure what your point is, assuming they had anything directly to do with Duo sales (which they didn't).

They pulled the plug on the console division because it was no longer as profitable as their other divisions.

This is just reality.

This isn't reality, and it doesn't even make any sense. How could NEC's console division have been discontinued in 1994 just as they were launching a brand new 32-bit platform? NEC's console division soldiered on with the PC-FX at the helm until 1998, when the plug was finally pulled.

Still, NEC Interchannel lived on despite console production ceasing. As a matter of fact, Interchannel still exists today despite the controlling interests having been sold off to a third party in 2004.

[Supremo_Lagarto]

Someone has sadly led you up the garden path.

Hey, let's be nice.

There were no more Arcade card games after 1995 because there were no longer Duo's being produced as of 1994.

The division that produced the Duo console was dissolved in 1994 or early 1995. The Duo consoles themselves were not produced after 1994 (1993 in the states).

NEC Avenue was a subdivision of NEC (which designed and produced the DUO with Hudson), so naturally they were involved in the sale of DUO-related products, to suggest they were not is silly. My six button gamepad has NEC Avenue written right on it. It is not a software arcade port. It is a piece of hardware.

The NEC Avenue brand was retired in the mid 90's (because they didn't make enough money for NEC). Just like with any corporate subdivision, the personnel and resources were allocated somewhere else. The NEC Avenue brand was retired. Whether or not we consider NEC Interchannel to be the same subdivision is splitting semantic hairs and missing the point completely.

The PCFX 32-bit platform was not a console in the traditional sense; it was more of an attempt to create a multimedia center or computer. It didn't really fit into either category.

My whole point was that NO DUOS after 1994 = NO MORE ARCADE CARD GAMES.

I like like a company and its products and wish things had been different, but I can't change history to support my bias.

If only NEC spent more time with the Arcade Card vs PC-FX things may have turned out different. Or better yet have a upgrade that made your PC engine into a PC-FX. Could have been interesting...

The Arcade Card was still limited by the capabilities of the Duo, which was at heart an 8-bit system. The biggest problem with the PCFX is that they eliminated features that would have made it competitive with Sony and Sega, but did not redesign it to then be more affordable than what Sony and Sega were producing at the time. They also couldn't seem to decide what the PCFX was supposed to be or who their market was.

[nat]

There were no more Arcade card games after 1995 because there were no longer Duo's being produced as of 1994.

The division that produced the Duo console was dissolved in 1994 or early 1995. The Duo consoles themselves were not produced after 1994 (1993 in the states).

You might be right that there were no Duos produced after 1994 (I don't have any information either way), but there were certainly arcade card games produced into 1996, so I'm not really sure what you're getting after.

NEC Avenue was a subdivision of NEC (which designed and produced the DUO with Hudson), so naturally they were involved in the sale of DUO-related products, to suggest they were not is silly.

What's silly is claiming that NEC Avenue, a software development team, was responsible for marketing the Duo because the parent company is NEC Home Electronics.

NEC Home Electronics <> NEC Avenue.

It's like saying that Hudson Soft is responsible for marketing the latest Castlevania titles because they are part of Konami.

My six button gamepad has NEC Avenue written right on it. It is not a software arcade port. It is a piece of hardware.

Your 6 button pad doesn't have "NEC Avenue" written on it, it has "Avenue Pad 6" written on it.

The NEC Avenue brand was retired in the mid 90's (because they didn't make enough money for NEC). Just like with any corporate subdivision, the personnel and resources were allocated somewhere else. It didn't mutate into another subdivision, it was retired. Whether or not we consider NEC Interchannel to be the same subdivision is splitting semantic hairs and missing the point completely.

Yes, what is your point? You've stated NEC Avenue was responsible for marketing the Duo, and that they went "bankrupt" in 1994 thus ceasing production of the Duo and arcade card games alike.

However, NEC Avenue continued operations under the NEC Avenue name until 1996, so at least part of your statement certainly isn't accurate.

You then stated no arcade card games were produced after 1994, when in fact they were still being produced into 1996.

I don't even know what we're arguing here, other than the fact that you're clearly misinformed.

And then this....

The PCFX 32-bit platform was not a console in the traditional sense; it was more of a computer or media center.

...is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read.

Just because we like a company and its products does not mean we get to invent the truth to support our bias.

You are the only one inventing "truth" here, unfortunately.