What were the lifetime sales for the PCE/PCEDuo

[Ray]

By the way, one of the more enjoyable links I've found, again in Japanese, is a list of people talking about their five favorite PCE games, regrouped according to game:

http://www.openspc2.org/~bgm/CON/PCTL.html

I'm surprised to see Fuun Kabuki Den only get 1 vote! Tengai Makyou II crushes the competition as usual though.

[imparanoic]

How times have changed.

The Wii U is a "failure" with over 6 million lifetime sale and counting.

The PCE was one of the biggest success stories in Japan in its day and worldwide sales were approximately 7 million.

times changed, back in the 90's, video game manufacturers were not on same scale, probably half of what Hollywood makes, now, video game industry is worth double of film industry, ie, success means a few millions units in 90's, now it's tens of millions

also , you have to consider that there were a lot more  video game manufacturers, than Nintendo, sega and nec, ie, apple pippin, fm towns,  uk obscure failures such as cd32, Amstrad gx, which only sold tens of thousands of units, this is due the level of investment was far less than nowadays billion dollar industry

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/04/19/as-video-game-sales-climb-year-over-year-violent-crime-continues-to-fall/

[o.pwuaioc]

How times have changed.

The Wii U is a "failure" with over 6 million lifetime sale and counting.

The PCE was one of the biggest success stories in Japan in its day and worldwide sales were approximately 7 million.

times changed, back in the 90's, video game manufacturers were not on same scale, probably half of what Hollywood makes, now, video game industry is worth double of film industry, ie, success means a few millions units in 90's, now it's tens of millions

also , you have to consider that there were a lot more  video game manufacturers, than Nintendo, sega and nec, ie, apple pippin, fm towns,  uk obscure failures such as cd32, Amstrad gx, which only sold tens of thousands of units, this is due the level of investment was far less than nowadays billion dollar industry

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/04/19/as-video-game-sales-climb-year-over-year-violent-crime-continues-to-fall/

Right. Nintendo is hemorrhaging money due to poor Wii U sales. It costs more to make it then it did, I presume, the entirety of the PCE over its life.

[SamIAm]

Maybe I should move this to the PC-FX forum, but whatever.

I sat down and read all of this, and it was really interesting. If you can read Japanese and want to know more about what management at Hudson and NEC were thinking in 1994 (when all of this was written), this will tell you.

http://www.geocities.jp/bgrtype/gsl/words/pc-fx/pcfx.html

You've got the executive director and the technical director from Hudson, two software developers from NEC and a couple others talking about the next generation of video games. It's quite the snapshot.

By the way, wouldn't you know it, one of them mentions that the user base for the PCE-CD system at the time is 1.8 million.

[CrackTiger]

Maybe I should move this to the PC-FX forum, but whatever.

I sat down and read all of this, and it was really interesting. If you can read Japanese and want to know more about what management at Hudson and NEC were thinking in 1994 (when all of this was written), this will tell you.

http://www.geocities.jp/bgrtype/gsl/words/pc-fx/pcfx.html

You've got the executive director and the technical director from Hudson, two software developers from NEC and a couple others talking about the next generation of video games. It's quite the snapshot.

By the way, wouldn't you know it, one of them mentions that the user base for the PCE-CD system at the time is 1.8 million.

Google Translate butchers that site, but judging from what the context appears to be and what you've posted previously from Japanese sources, it sounds like he was talking about the number of copies that successful PC Engine games sell around.

Similar to that quote from bitd from somebody at Enix saying how it wasn't worthwhile for them to make a new Dragon Quest game unless they were confident that it would sell 3 million copies. I believe that they were explaining why they were wasn't a Super Famicom DQ game right away and they basically said that Nintendo had to sell more consoles first.

It looked like that 1.8 million comment was putting in perspective why it was hard to get developers to take a risk with the PC-FX when a CD-ROM game could instead be developed for the still-going-strong PC Engine.

[SamIAm]

Sorry, but that's a completely inaccurate translation.

The line with the number is this: 問屋さんが最近、ＰＣエンジンのソフトが売れないとか言ってますけど、ハードの数は180万は出ていますから眠ってるだけだと思うんです。

"Mr. Toiya has been saying recently that PC Engine software won't sell, but there are 1.8 million units of the hardware out there, which is why I think that it's just sleeping."

In the surrounding text, he talks about his intentions to continue to develop for the PCE. He will make games for the next generation, but he also wants to "wake up the sleeping child". After all, the hardware has finally gotten cheaper.

[A Black Falcon]

1.8 million in 1994, 1.9 million overall?  Wow, the system must have collapsed really badly in 1995 if that's accurate...

[Nazi NecroPhile]

The 32-bit generation started in '93, so two years later would be a 16 bitters best year evah?  No doubt sales of the Genesis took a similar nose dive, and the SNES too albeit a year or so later since they didn't yet have a new system to support.

[SamIAm]

Well, the 3DO came out in Japan in March '94, but that's still basically true. Though the Genesis still had some decent sales in '95, the Mega Drive in Japan pretty much fell off the radar as soon as the Saturn came out. Many Mega Drive games made in '95 tend to have been manufactured in such low quantities that they are really expensive today (ie Ristar).

One thing to note is that there is no reference to when in '94 those pieces were written. There's a big difference between early and late '94, mostly because of the cheaper RX system that came out in the summer. 120,000 systems sold in very late '94 and '95 would not be so bad in light of the total being 1.92 million, and the triumvirate of 32-bit systems that came out at the end of the '94.

This is totally unsubstantiated, but one thing that I read on a Japanese forum is that NEC didn't really get any royalties from PCE game sales. Apparently, it all went to Hudson. That makes me wonder if NEC had to price all of their systems to make a decent profit. Sure, the Duo was cheap in America, but that's maybe because they were so desperate to get a stake in the market. In Japan, it was $600, then $400, then finally $300 in '94.

I suspect that they might have sold through a lot more RX systems in '95 if they dropped the price to $200 or lower.

[A Black Falcon]

Sure, but given that they also had the CoreGrafx and CoreGrafx II it seems quite pointless.

Then this must seem completely ridiculous to you:


/n64c1.jpg

/n64c2.png

/n64c3.jpg

First, I wasn't the one to first mention the Shuttle, I just agreed that it didn't make much sense.

Second, and more importantly, most of those are just recolors, and even the Pikachu N64 is fully compatible with all N64 accessories.  This is, of course, not true with the PCE Shuttle, and it's got to be its biggest weakness.  A TG16 that can't attach to a CD drive and that also needs its own custom save backup unit because it's incompatible with the usual backup boosters, too?  Oh come on, that's just silly.  And counter-intuitive, when NEC's main focus shortly afterwards became selling CD units and Duos!

I have yet to find a single reliable-looking number for sales of any particular Japanese hucard, which pretty much brings my data-based analysis to a close. I'll chime in real quick on all the hubbub about add-ons and the Arcade Card, though. 

On one hand, I think that the PCE-CD expansion and the Super System Card 3.0 are both examples of add-ons that actually worked, and undoubtedly improved the fate of the system(s) they became part of. The 3.0 Card in particular seems like quite a gamble when you think about it, but everyone pulled completely on the same rope, and it all worked out. Interestingly, if you check a release list, you can see how within about 1 year of the 3.0 system coming out, a significant majority of PCE releases were SCD games.

On the other hand, the Arcade Card was probably not the best idea in the world. It's just that it wound up not mattering much anyway.

See, if NEC had had their act together, they would have released a system with a fighting chance against the Saturn and the Playstation. What they actually released - the PC-FX - was so terrible that it didn't sell as much in three years as the competition sold in literally a few days. But imagine a scenario where NEC had a viable all-around strategy. Part of that has to consist of rallying their fan-base around their next generation console. And of course, one of the most important parts of getting your fans to make that transition is gracefully winding down the previous generation system.

For both consumers and developers, the Arcade Card would have been a distraction, and it would have diverted resources away from the PC-FX and the Super CD system just like the 32X did with the Saturn and the Genesis. That's why however much they are embraced in the PCE library, most of the Arcade Card games...like Fatal Fury2, Art of Fighting, Sapphire...these should have been PC-FX games. And they should have been running on a much better PC-FX.

Yeah, I agree with just about everything you say here.  I do think that there is merit to solid game support late in a system's life, though; the SNES had great years from 1994 to 1996, and later in Japan.  Of course that system released years later, though, but still, it's in the same generation... still though, you don't want to distract people with new addons too close to the next generation, that is true.  Not wanting to distract things from the real next-gen platform is the reason why Star Fox 2 was never released, of course, even though it was finished; Nintendo decided that 3d games would be for the N64, not the SNES. 

Sega of course messed up everything for themselves with their stupid decisions, but their worst decisions were in the West, not in Japan.  It's easy enough to see that Sega faded in the mid '90s because of terrible strategy mistakes surrounding the 32X and Saturn in the West.  For NEC, though, I'm not as sure; they just didn't seem to have any momentum.  I suspect that messing up their next-gen strategy so badly really hurt them -- once the PC-FX was released and clearly no one cared, I would guess that it helped drag down the Duo as well.  I mean, even though I'm sure 4th gen sales declined for everyone, and even if that 1.8 number is from very late 1994, selling only 120,000 systems in 1995-1997 is pretty bad, considering that they'd sold almost 1.8 million from 1988 to whatever point in 1994 that article was published in. I don't think that you can explain that whole decline just with that the next generation had started.  For sales from 1996 on, sure, that'd explain it there... but 1995?  There were still many major 4th gen titles released on all platforms in 1995 in both the US and Japan.  So yeah, my guess is that the PC-FX strategy debacle may have hurt them.  Perhaps losing the Western market hurt them as well; even small Western sales of TG16/CD games were better than nothing?  Maybe those weren't enough to matter past the first years of the TG16, though.  That's sadly likely, I guess.  And need I even mention how incredibly stupid never releasing anything officially in Europe was...

As for the Arcade Card, there I'm less sure.  The Arcade Card wasn't as expensive, bulky, or annoying (three power bricks!) as the 32X, and Japan was clearly much more accepting of limited-support addons than the West was, so I'm sure the Arcade Card didn't hurt NEC like the 32X did Sega in the US.  Of course, the 32X didn't hurt Sega there as much either, though that was probably more because the Saturn was already out and people just ignored it; the Genesis hadn't sold that great after all.  Still, the Arcade Card did split the market again, and late in the generation, a time when they surely needed sales.  That's rarely a good thing unless there's a very good reason for it.  The Super System Card, yes, that was handled perfectly.  The Arcade Card?  Not so much. 

However, 4th gen consoles did need plenty of major releases in 1994 and 1995.  Even in Japan, I don't think that 5th gen hardware sales REALLY got hot until 1996-1997... by late '95 it was starting, but at least through that year there was a definite place for major 5th gen releases.  And on the SNES, there was a place for major releases all the way until 1999!  Of course the SNES crushed all other platforms in sales in Japan, so it makes sense that it'd get several more years of software support than the competition (and indeed it did), but still, NEC has to have been able to do better.  They had some good games, but some of them were Arcade Card only and thus could only sell to the limited audience that had actually bought the things, and many of Hudson's top mass-market titles in 1994-1995 were on SNES and Saturn, not TCD or PCFX -- an obvious sign of lack of confidence in their consoles.  A better next-gen strategy and platform, no Arcade Card, maybe a bit more later HuCard support (abandoning 60% of your market... even if CDs are better, I just don't know if that was the best move...)... I don't know.  But with NEC (and Hudson it seems) really attached to the idea of FMV as the basis for their next console, NEC was doomed.  There's no way to save them with the PC-FX existing, and as I said, I expect that its failure helped take down the PC Engine itself sooner too.  Maybe not (the SNES probably eventually faded in Japan simply because of its age, not because the N64 had failed so badly there...), but it's definitely possible, anyway.

But yeah, as I said, best would be a Super System Card with more RAM on it, and no Arcade Card.  Trying to get people to upgrade again in 1994 was just too late in the generation...

That's also kind of the problem.

I mean, there are a few ways that NEC could have approached the PC-FX. Maybe they could have made the anime-heavy digital-comic-book/pseudo-RPG thing work if they made the hardware cheap, courted developers and put no limits on the content. But if they were going to use a conventional approach, they probably should have not only revised the hardware, but the software, too. The PCE was the first system with Street Fighter II, right? Why shouldn't its successor cash in on that fighting game heritage?

EDIT: By the way, if anyone wants to see a bunch of Japanese nerds talking about this same crap, here you go. Just beware, it ain't pretty:
http://anago.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/ghard/1397208601/
http://anago.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/ghard/1399556230/

The second thread is currently active.

Yeah, there's so much wrong with the PC-FX that it could only be "saved" by killing it and starting over with something better, really.  If they'd gotten it out even earlier MAYBE they could have competed with the 3DO and Sega CD in the FMV-heavy-game category, but those were never as popular in Japan as they were here, so I doubt very much that that would have done much good, and they'd have died once the PS1 got popular anyway.  And even the 3DO can do some polygons.  No, they needed better, more up-to-date hardware, and a strategy to match; NEC's "we'll focus on anime otaku stuff" strategy wasn't a good one, obviously, as they learned once it failed.

How could you not understand what I meant by 'bump', especially in relation to SF2, and be part of the PCE community?  Hucard bumps are famous. People have been curious for years, what was under those bumps.

Oh yeah.  Of course. :p  I guess I was thinking that since we now do know what's under them, it's not such a big deal... and anyway, the Super System Card and Populous used the 'bump' card before SFII, so it wasn't something made just for that game.

[SamIAm]

To me, the PC-FX is a fascinating mistake. It's like the Star Wars prequels - it's almost incredible how much they screwed up.

I don't want to spend all day translating or writing out all the points made in those Japanese essays I posted, but maybe the most common underlying assumption coming from those NEC/Hudson guys was that the next generation of hardware and software was going to form a dichotomy: one subdivision would be centered around realtime polygon graphics, and the other would be centered around streamed FMV. The terminology they used was "creation-type" and "storage-type".

Ordinary 2D action games, they said, could be done on the Arcade Card.

The baffling thing is, they kept talking about how the PC-FX was going to rule the "storage-type" side because it had the best FMV streaming technology. It's hard to say whether they were in denial or simply didn't do their homework, but it should have been apparent that the Playstation had a competitive enough MPEG processor, and the Saturn enough raw CPU power, to erase any kind of technological gap. AFAIK, there is literally no game concept that could be done on the PC-FX but not the Playstation or Saturn.

It would be one thing if the PC-FX actually did have much better FMV capabilities, but given that it didn't (and it actually had worse resolution), you have to wonder what they were thinking.

 

I mean, even though I'm sure 4th gen sales declined for everyone, and even if that 1.8 number is from very late 1994, selling only 120,000 systems in 1995-1997 is pretty bad, considering that they'd sold almost 1.8 million from 1988 to whatever point in 1994 that article was published in. I don't think that you can explain that whole decline just with that the next generation had started.  For sales from 1996 on, sure, that'd explain it there... but 1995?  There were still many major 4th gen titles released on all platforms in 1995 in both the US and Japan.  So yeah, my guess is that the PC-FX strategy debacle may have hurt them. 

According to the SegaBase article about the Saturn, by June of 1995, the Saturn had sold 1.3 million units and the PSX had sold 1.2 million units in Japan. Up until those two systems came out, I think the PCE-CD was the CD-ROM system. As soon as they did come out, though, consumers seemed to abandon the PCE quickly.

One thing that I remember happening around that time was that the Genesis and the SNES became so cheap that people who only owned one system up until that point could finally start to afford both, and the userbase swelled. People getting the systems for the first time were interested in new software, so games kept being made in significant quantities, and it was all-around a very "healthy" situation. By contrast, a Duo-RX was not a whole lot cheaper than one of the next-gen systems, and its user-base was small to begin with, so there wasn't the same potential for growth.

Between all that and the PC-FX going down in flames (I speculate that by June 1995, it had probably sold 50-70k systems), yes, the Duo probably didn't look particularly attractive at the time.

so I'm sure the Arcade Card didn't hurt NEC like the 32X did Sega in the US.

Oh, I definitely agree. I only think that if the PC-FX had been better, there would have been potential for the Arcade Card to damage its strength in a similar kind of way, even if to a lesser degree.

[Ray]

The baffling thing is, they kept talking about how the PC-FX was going to rule the "storage-type" side because it had the best FMV streaming technology. It's hard to say whether they were in denial or simply didn't do their homework, but it should have been apparent that the Playstation had a competitive enough MPEG processor, and the Saturn enough raw CPU power, to erase any kind of technological gap. AFAIK, there is literally no game concept that could be done on the PC-FX but not the Playstation or Saturn.

The Saturn also eventually got the Movie Card expansion in Japan which could play MPEG-1 VCDs, plus some very impressive FMVs in certain games,(i.e. Lunar SSS MPEG-ban) which definitely outclasses the PC-FX in FMV quality. VCD never caught on though, and neither did the Movie Card.

[CrackTiger]

The baffling thing is, they kept talking about how the PC-FX was going to rule the "storage-type" side because it had the best FMV streaming technology. It's hard to say whether they were in denial or simply didn't do their homework, but it should have been apparent that the Playstation had a competitive enough MPEG processor, and the Saturn enough raw CPU power, to erase any kind of technological gap. AFAIK, there is literally no game concept that could be done on the PC-FX but not the Playstation or Saturn.

If you'd done your homework, you'd know that the Playstation doesn't have an MPEG decoder.

It would be one thing if the PC-FX actually did have much better FMV capabilities, but given that it didn't (and it actually had worse resolution), you have to wonder what they were thinking.

Another good example of how you can't judge consoles based on tech spec lists. PC-FX video typically looks better than the average VCD and only the Saturn running the MPEG card is comparable.

[SamIAm]

If you'd done your homework, you'd know that the Playstation doesn't have an MPEG decoder.

Excuse me. MJPEG/H.261 decoder.

Point still stands.

Another good example of how you can't judge consoles based on tech spec lists. PC-FX video typically looks better than the average VCD and only the Saturn running the MPEG card is comparable.

Bullshit. 

Tell me that when you've spent a dozen hours picking apart a PC-FX video frame by frame, recoding it, and comparing the level of macroblocking.

See for yourself. http://pc-fx.moemoe.gr.jp/colume04.html (NSFW)
PC-FX on the left, Saturn on the right.
These images were not captured by analog, but by decoding software. They are virtually RGB perfect, although the PC-FX ones must have been stretched.

EDIT: Here's a screen I just took via Mednafen of the same game. There is no added lossyness, and I've enlarged it to twice the original size (which was 256x232, as opposed to images you see in the link above that are stretched to 320x224 .



PSX (EDIT: Oops, I meant PS1) videos are generally higher resolution and higher framerate than PC-FX games. PC-FX cannot do video greater than 256x240 and there's not a single game that maintains a constant framerate above 12. Not to my knowledge, anyway, and I personally tested a good bunch of them.

Everything Square did, just as an example, is at or just shy of 320x240, and it's all a constant 15fps.




Lunar 2's video on the Saturn is 320x224 and 30fps.

[A Black Falcon]

PC-FX video is lower resolution and lower quality?  Looks like a pretty clear result there to me.  And those screenshots reflect it.  How about PC-FX versus 3DO or CD-i, though?  I mean, I'd think that the CD-i with MPEG cartridge could beat it; that system can do MPEG after all.  It may not have released in Japan though of course.  The 3DO is worse than that, but how about 3DO vs. PC-FX?  I don't know which one has the advantage there.


Also, 1.3 million PS1s and 1.2 million Saturns sold by June?  No, that can't be right... and SegaBase isn't the most reliable source either, for sure.  Here's what I can find from Sony: http://web.archive.org/web/20110722094946/http://scei.co.jp/corporate/data/bizdataps_e.html

This shows 1 million PS1s shipped (shipped, not sold) to Japan by the end of May 1995, 2 million by the end of December.  So you're right that 1995 PS1/Saturn sales in Japan were good, if shipments were like that, but the year also had plenty of major SNES releases too (and Turbo CD, Genesis, 32X, 3DO, and PC-FX, though those surely sold less), and shipments don't usually equal sales of course.

[CrackTiger]

You can't judge the quality of fmv of this level by select aspects and without real hardware. Not all video is the same quality in each game on each console for a variety of reasons. If you find good examples for each console, they still need to be the same type of original source, ie: film based hand drawn/painted animation, digitally painted and compiled animation, purely live action, etc. You can also tell if you're looking at a section of source material that contained artifacts from mixing clips, such as many game intros do.

That PC-FX screenshot looks to have been cherry picked to make the console look bad. Those other screenshots are jpegs. It doesn't make sense that Lunar EB would waste 30fps on 12fps animation. If that's true, then it could have been completely fullscreen, with no visible imperfections and animated slightly better at 12fps.

I no longer have a PC-FX, but going in thinking that it must be overrated, I was blown away by the quality of video in many games, but I might have only tried two or three dozen. I compared the best fmv I could find on PSX and Saturn and it was the overall balance in good PC-FX video that stood apart.

[SamIAm]

PC-FX video is lower resolution and lower quality?  Looks like a pretty clear result there to me.  And those screenshots reflect it.  How about PC-FX versus 3DO or CD-i, though?  I mean, I'd think that the CD-i with MPEG cartridge could beat it; that system can do MPEG after all.  It may not have released in Japan though of course.  The 3DO is worse than that, but how about 3DO vs. PC-FX?  I don't know which one has the advantage there.

That's going to be hard to compare without taking the time to research similar games between the systems, hunting up ISOs and configuring emulators to take clean screenshots. It could be a fun project, but I'll have to pass.

Although there is actually a 3DO port of that game being compared in the link, and whose PC-FX screenshot I grabbed (Tokimeki Mahjong Paradise). I'll see if I can't get it to run in an emulator easily.

Also, 1.3 million PS1s and 1.2 million Saturns sold by June?  No, that can't be right... and SegaBase isn't the most reliable source either, for sure.  Here's what I can find from Sony: http://web.archive.org/web/20110722094946/http://scei.co.jp/corporate/data/bizdataps_e.html

This shows 1 million PS1s shipped (shipped, not sold) to Japan by the end of May 1995, 2 million by the end of December.  So you're right that 1995 PS1/Saturn sales in Japan were good, if shipments were like that, but the year also had plenty of major SNES releases too (and Turbo CD, Genesis, 32X, 3DO, and PC-FX, though those surely sold less), and shipments don't usually equal sales of course.

Yeah, I've often come across things in the SegaBase articles that I know aren't correct. But, on the other hand, the price of both the Saturn and the PS1 dropped $100 in June 1995 (I double-checked this fact elsewhere), so there may have been a rush of buying.

[SamIAm]

You can't judge the quality of fmv of this level by select aspects and without real hardware. Not all video is the same quality in each game on each console for a variety of reasons. If you find good examples for each console, they still need to be the same type of original source, ie: film based hand drawn/painted animation, digitally painted and compiled animation, purely live action, etc. You can also tell if you're looking at a section of source material that contained artifacts from mixing clips, such as many game intros do.

If you're saying we can't settle this without a thorough analysis of several types of identical high quality video sources fed through the best video encoders for each system and displayed on both real hardware and emulators, I guess you've got me.

But I do own real hardware, and I spent hours comparing videos when Esperknight and I put subtitles in Zeroigar's FMV. I still think that the resolution and the general level of macroblocking on PC-FX is poor enough that it does not stand out as superior, particularly against the Playstation.

A lot of 1995 Saturn games had crappy FMV, it's true. But that game used in the comparison in the link above came out in October 1995, and the PC-FX version in January 1996. I really don't see any reason to think that they would have used a lower-quality source for the PC-FX version.

That PC-FX screenshot looks to have been cherry picked to make the console look bad.

I downloaded the same game used in the comparison in the link above (which, by the way, came from a PC-FX fansite) and took a screenshot of the very first scene.

Those other screenshots are jpegs. It doesn't make sense that Lunar EB would waste 30fps on 12fps animation. If that's true, then it could have been completely fullscreen, with no visible imperfections and animated slightly better at 12fps.

Yes, they are JPEGs. But they are also quality JPEGs. I don't think you're going to see much difference in a PNG screenshot. Actually, they might look even better.

As for Lunar 2, all of the 3D rendered stuff, like the hallway leading to Lucia floating in her crystal in the intro FMV, moves at 30 FPS. Also, I think all the panning was 30 FPS. If you look at the "making-of" video, you'll see how Lunar 2's cells were animated on a computer.

I no longer have a PC-FX, but going in thinking that it must be overrated, I was blown away by the quality of video in many games, but I might have only tried two or three dozen. I compared the best fmv I could find on PSX and Saturn and it was the overall balance in good PC-FX video that stood apart.

Here's a screenshot from the fourth, and arguably highest production value, Anime Freak FX game.



It's much more flattering, to be sure. The color gradients are smooth and the lines are clear. But the resolution is still 256x232, it's still 12 fps, and there is still JPEG fuzziness.

Interestingly, the live-action footage on the same disc is a constant 30FPS, which is the first I've found on the system. It's windowed to 192x160, though.

[SamIAm]

I need to get going, but here's a screenshot of the 3DO version of the same game. The original resolution is 320x240, and again this is just doubled.



Here's the PC-FX shot again. (256x232)


...and the Saturn (320x224)

[SamIAm]

In the interest of fairness, I'll say this.

In motion, the Saturn port of that Tokimeki game seems to display more artifacts when there is lots of motion on the screen. I think this is because the Saturn is using a software MPEG codec rather than something JPEG based, so the more motion, the more quality loss.

Also, to my surprise, it seems that all of these ports update the screen at 30 fps when playing FMV. This is a bit ridiculous, because the anime itself doesn't call for that at all. It's fair to say that this company didn't take the greatest care in making the videos, and I would say that that PC-FX screenshot is indeed worse than the average PC-FX FMV.

Now, one more comparison: Der Langrisser

Unlike the Tokimeki game, Der Langrisser was made for the PC-FX first, then ported to the Saturn and Playstation later. In the Tokimeki game, you can see how the image was cropped and squished. Well, now you can see how the Saturn version is stretched.

These are straight from emulators, 2x enlarged, no added lossiness.

PC-FX (256x232)


PS1 (256x240)


Saturn (320x224)


PC-FX


PS1


Saturn


Yeah, the Saturn one looks pretty bad. Overall, though, the PS1 version looks just fine.

The whole point of all this is that the PC-FX did not have an FMV decoder that stood out in any way, and I think the screenshots of these games ported across the different systems show that. The 256 pixel horizontal resolution limit alone is pretty harsh. If it had had something actually higher than 320x240, and/or if if the compression was squeaky clean, THEN it would have stood out. 

Of course, it's all a moot point anyway, because FMV in the 32-bit era was the garnish, not the meat and potatoes.


EDIT: I went ahead and got real emulator screenshots for Chrono Cross and Lunar 2. See above. Lunar 2 has some graininess, but Chrono Chross looks exactly like the JPEG from before.

[CrackTiger]

Just because a console is outputting a particular resolution while fmv is streaming, it doesn't mean that the fmv is the same resolution. Tengai Makyou The Apocalypse IV features some of the highest quality fmv on the Saturn, but if you rip the video off the disc, the raw video it isn't nearly the same resolution as the Saturn is outputting. The screenshots posted so far were likely stretched by each console's hardware/emulation and who knows what else happens to the overall image before being displayed on real consoles. That's why still screenshots and emulator stats are misleading.

This 256 x 224 video is not actually 256 x 224 pixels:




Chrono Cross is a huge budget release using state of the art technology from the future and was released at the very end of 1999. A shot with very minimal movement in a clip using material which blends together artifacts is going to look best. But that game does have high quality fmv for that generation, as it should, all things considered. Lunar EB for Saturn was also released after the PC-FX had been discontinued and also likely had a much higher budget than any PC-FX game.

It's true that the PC-FX didn't have something magical like dvd quality video to stand a generation apart from other consoles around the same time, but the overall quality of the fmv did stand out at the time and is why people commented as much at a time when everything that wasn't Playstation was blindly trashed.

Battle Heat was released during the launch of both the Saturn and Playstation. Aside from the overall quality of the fmv, it also shows how well the PC-FX could handle shuffling around video clips in real-time gameplay. Blue Seed 9's battles on Saturn were still very impressive for the time, but Battle Heat does seem like it's in a league of its own by comparison.


Here's a dvd quality comparison I did before selling my PC-FX:


PC-FX fmv

Saturn fmv

Side by Side


*Something to take into consideration, is that the advertise trailer for TM:TAIV appears to suffer from the degradation of the edited original video. The un-subtilted versionsof the clips which appear in the trailer look better in-game. But this was the best footage I could put together to compare two similarly themed games with.

Kakutoden's footage looks as though the source material was blurrier and it might have been shot on film while TM:TAIV might have shot straight to video or have been rendered on a computer first.

Both games were recorded to dvd video from real hardware running authentic copies using S-Video.

[SamIAm]

What do you mean "rip the video off the disc"? Did you copy off the video files and play them with a custom video player?

Because if that's what you did, then the answer is probably that the video player used a different (but somewhat compatible) codec. When you are dealing with software codecs like the Saturn had, these things can happen. But an emulator is always using the same codec as real hardware, because it's getting the codec from the same place. So what exactly is the difference supposed to be between real hardware and emulation? What are you assuming isn't - and can't be - emulated?

Any conversion to a TV signal isn't going to change much, other than maybe to blur artifacts. And what else is there? This isn't like other areas of emulation where sprite priorities and raster effects can get screwed up. There are only plain images, entirely pre-drawn, and this is simply a matter of how much detail there is in each one.

PC-FX FMV can only have 256 pixels of width, period. You could take the original Chrono Cross FMV - I mean the original lossless output from whatever workstations they were using, before it was encoded for the Playstation - encode it for the PC-FX using the best codec possible, and it would still not look as good because (320-256=) 64 of the pixels on each horizontal line would have to be eliminated, and the evidence I've shown indicates that the image would otherwise have about the same level of JPEG artifacts.

Your comparison videos are nice, but unless the source material is the same, you don't necessarily prove anything other than that more work was put into one than the other. Now, if you applied the same real-hardware recording method to Der Langrisser and compared the same frames like I did, that would carry some weight. But I'll be damned if doing so makes the PC-FX version look any better than the PS1's.

EDIT: I assume the mystery not-actually-256x224 GIF you added can be located on the disc, opened with some other program, and it will display at less than 256x224. Again, it's a matter of your other program using a different codec.

Or am I not getting what you were trying to say with that GIF?

[Nazi NecroPhile]

I do think that there is merit to solid game support late in a system's life, though; the SNES had great years from 1994 to 1996, and later in Japan.  Of course that system released years later, though, but still, it's in the same generation...

Similarly, the Super Famicom was poorly supported for the first three years of its life (late '87 to late '90). 

If you look at each console's life span, the length of time they were heavily supported is remarkably similar, with the PCE actually being supported for longer (90% of its library over six years vs. five years for the SF).

And on the SNES, there was a place for major releases all the way until 1999!

An unfulfilled place?  If you look at what was released after '96, there's a couple goodies in '97 but nothing great in '98 or '99.

But yeah, as I said, best would be a Super System Card with more RAM on it, and no Arcade Card.  Trying to get people to upgrade again in 1994 was just too late in the generation...

The original system should've been a Duo-RX with built-in Arcade Card, built-in tap, SGX hardware, and cost $1000.  Woulda been a sure winner!

[CrackTiger]

What do you mean "rip the video off the disc"? Did you copy off the video files and play them with a custom video player?

Because if that's what you did, then the answer is probably that the video player used a different (but somewhat compatible) codec. When you are dealing with software codecs like the Saturn had, these things can happen. But an emulator is always using the same codec as real hardware, because it's getting the codec from the same place. So what exactly is the difference supposed to be between real hardware and emulation? What are you assuming isn't - and can't be - emulated?

Any conversion to a TV signal isn't going to change much, other than maybe to blur artifacts. And what else is there? This isn't like other areas of emulation where sprite priorities and raster effects can get screwed up. There are only plain images, entirely pre-drawn, and this is simply a matter of how much detail there is in each one.

PC-FX FMV can only have 256 pixels of width, period. You could take the original Chrono Cross FMV - I mean the original lossless output from whatever workstations they were using, before it was encoded for the Playstation - encode it for the PC-FX using the best codec possible, and it would still not look as good because (320-256=) 64 of the pixels on each horizontal line would have to be eliminated, and the evidence I've shown indicates that the image would otherwise have about the same level of JPEG artifacts.

Your comparison videos are nice, but unless the source material is the same, you don't necessarily prove anything other than that more work was put into one than the other. Now, if you applied the same real-hardware recording method to Der Langrisser and compared the same frames like I did, that would carry some weight. But I'll be damned if doing so makes the PC-FX version look any better than the PS1's.

EDIT: I assume the mystery not-actually-256x224 GIF you added can be located on the disc, opened with some other program, and it will display at less than 256x224. Again, it's a matter of your other program using a different codec.

Or am I not getting what you were trying to say with that GIF?

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.

At least one Sega Saturn video codec was available online years ago which let you remove and play raw fmv segments off of games which used it. I ripped the videos of at least TM: The Apocalypse IV, Lunar SSS and Saturn Bomberman.

[A Black Falcon]

Based on those screenshots it sure looks to me like the idea that PC-FX video is in any way better than PS1 video has been disproven, and that includes games released on both PC-FX and PS1.

Similarly, the Super Famicom was poorly supported for the first three years of its life (late '87 to late '90). 

There's a difference between a time when a system is actually available, and a time before its release, you know... :p

If you look at each console's life span, the length of time they were heavily supported is remarkably similar, with the PCE actually being supported for longer (90% of its library over six years vs. five years for the SF).

That is somewhat true, but if you separate teh console and the addon, it goes like this:

Japan support lengths only.
SNES - 10 years (12/1990 - 12/2000)
SNES breakdown: Last normal cartridge release 1/2000; last NP release 12/2000
SNES Satellaview - 5 years (4/1995 - 6/2000,  but new broadcasts only ran until 3/1999; after that it was only reruns)
Genesis - 7 1/4 years (7 years first party)  (10/1988 - 12/1995 (1st) / 3/1996 (3rd, unless I'm missing something which I could be)
Sega CD - 4 1/6 years (4 years first party) (12/1991 - 12/1995 (1st) / 2/1996 (3rd))
32X - 10 months (12/1994 - 10/1995)
TG16 - 7 years (12/1987 - 12/1994, but only two releases in '94)
TCD - 8 years 4 months, plus one more game 2 years 2 months later (12/1988 to 4/1997, plus one more game in 6/1999)
TCD breakdown: regular CD games released between 12/1988 - 5/1993 (unless there's something later I'm not seeing) so 4 years 5 months
Super CD support: 10/1991 - 4/1997 (& 6/1999) so 6 years 6 months plus one more game 2 years 2 months later
Arcade CD support: 3/1994 - 12/1996 (with the 12/1996 game being the only 1996 release that supported the Arcade Card) so 1 year 9 months of regular support with 1 more game a year later

The SNES was supported for the longest amount of time.  Turbo CD is second (or technically first including Dead of the Brain, but that's got a big asterisk of "over two years after the previous release"), and the Genesis third.

An unfulfilled place?  If you look at what was released after '96, there's a couple goodies in '97 but nothing great in '98 or '99.

Sure, there were fewer in '97 to '00 than before, but the system was getting old by that point and newer systems were out, so you expect it.  Nintendo kept supporting the system anyway, though, maybe because of how the N64 wasn't doing well in Japan.  Of course though, continuing to release major SNES games can't have helped convince people to get N64s...

As for games, many of the major SNES games from '96 to '98 are on the Satellaview, and in the later '90s many were on Nintendo Power service cartridges as well -- that is, the rewritable carts people could buy and get games written on in store kiosks.  Pretty cool idea; it's too bad that they didn't continue it with the N64 and bring them out in the US as well, I think it could have been interesting.  By releasing stuff on Satellaview of NP they saved a lot in production costs, much like digital-download-only games.  Some games released on Satellaview or NP in '97 to '00 include Sutte Hakkun,  the eight volumes of Picross NP, the BS Zelda games, Shubibinman Zero (BS), the eight Picross NP volumes, Metal Slader Glory: Director's Cut, Wrecking Crew '98, Power Lode Runner, and Fire Emblem: Thracia 776.  Some also had normal cartridge releases later, including FE: Thracia 776, Wrecking Crew '98, and Sutte Hakkun, but others didn't.  There were also a couple of normal cart-only releases in '97 and '98, such as Kirby's Dream Land 3 and Kirby no Kirakira Kids (Kirby's Star Stacker SNES version)... those are mostly quality titles, regardless of what their budgets were.  Thracia 776 was the last major release from Nintendo (NP service in '99, cartridge release in '00), but after that they had some more Picross NP volumes and, last, Metal Slader Glory: Director's Cut (released preloaded on an NP cartridge), a remake of a Famicom adventure game.

Third parties had some games too, particularly in '96 through '98; after that it mostly dries up, yes.  But in '97 and '98 you do have a few third-party titles worth mentioning, such as Shubibinman Zero (Satellaview only release), Rockman & Forte, Super Bomberman 5, and some more.  I guess your response is that the SNES released later, so it makes sense that it was supported longer; really though, it's because it won, not because it released later.  I mean, the Xbox and Gamecube released well after the PS2, but they obviously weren't supportd as long!

The original system should've been a Duo-RX with built-in Arcade Card, built-in tap, SGX hardware, and cost $1000.  Woulda been a sure winner!

Have you already forgotten that the Sega CD, which released only three months after the Super System Card, has three times more RAM than the Super System Card does?  Get closer to Sega in RAM in '91 and they'd have had plenty for the generation.

[Nazi NecroPhile]

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.

Sure, there were fewer in '97 to '00 than before, but the system was getting old by that point and newer systems were out, so you expect it.

But we can't expect it of the PCE, eh?  Are you intentionally being obtuse?

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.

[SamIAm]

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.

Have you already forgotten that the Sega CD, which released only three months after the Super System Card, has three times more RAM than the Super System Card does?  Get closer to Sega in RAM in '91 and they'd have had plenty for the generation.

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.

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.

[A Black Falcon]

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.

[TurboXray]

It's been forever, but I remember the Saturn having issues with quality FMV. This was a point of contention back in the day of PS vs Saturn. The Saturn FMV had some terrible looking artifacts in motion. At what point did they fix this?

 Even if the Saturn did use native 320 horizontal resolution for video, the advantage isn't as great 25% increase leads you to believe. For one, SDTVs played a factor and the output of the 320 resolution blurred enough on the Saturn to even make mesh transparency trick seem solid. That, and video is a tricky thing. Assuming high color images with nice gradients; vertical resolution makes much more so than horizontal resolution. Always has, always will (for video). There was a trick to re-encode DVD video from 704/720x480 res into 352x480 res (common for CVCDs/KVCDs at the time, also a legal format for DVD), and although the difference was half - the perceivable difference was much-much less than that. Some people couldn't even tell.

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.

That's your problem; you're trying to fit the PCE system into other system standards. When in fact, the PCE set its own standard of what's an addon and what's part of the console. The Duo over took the main system; it replaced it for the rest of the life of the system. The CD system, added very little; you can't compare it to the SegaCD which has so much hardware added on that it's almost its own system (add a video chip and it would be). Same can be said for the 32x; even more so because you could rig the 32X as a standalone system (has ram, video, audio, and processors - it's only missing gamepad inputs).

 What is the main purpose of the CD unit for the PCE? It adds a new storage medium. That's the main purpose of it. It didn't upgrade the graphical capabilities or the processing capabilities. Didn't add 3D. Yeah ok, it upgraded the sound (which would have happened anyway via hucard). The SNES did this with addon chips directly in the carts (as well as the NES), and they even added processors and other specialty chips. Those are mini-self contained addons. If the Duo is no part of the main system, then neither are carts on the SNES that employ such chips (especially the late gen ones).

[CrackTiger]

Black Falcon views everything around the perspective of Nintendo inventing all standards for games and every innovation, no matter what may have been done before. If someone else does things different than Nintendo, then it is not normal and doesn't count.

Turbo/PCE CD games don't count as real Turbo/PCE games, even if you ignore the CD music and adpcm, but all the NES and SNES games with add-on hardware in carts, Zapper/Super Scope/Power Pad/ROB Robot/Piano/etc games and ram pak N64 games are real because they are Nintendo and Turbo/PCE is not.

[A Black Falcon]

Black Falcon views everything around the perspective of Nintendo inventing all standards for games and every innovation, no matter what may have been done before. If someone else does things different than Nintendo, then it is not normal and doesn't count.

100% false and lies.  Sure I like Nintendo, but I'd never think that only Nintendo invented standards or anything silly like that.

Turbo/PCE CD games don't count as real Turbo/PCE games, even if you ignore the CD music and adpcm, but all the NES and SNES games with add-on hardware in carts, Zapper/Super Scope/Power Pad/ROB Robot/Piano/etc games and ram pak N64 games are real because they are Nintendo and Turbo/PCE is not.

If you can't understand the difference between an external addon system which you have to buy separately, and a chip the company puts inside a cartridge, there's really nothing I can say.  It should be blatantly self-evident that those two things are different.

Also why are you conflating games which use special controllers with games which use a hardware addon?  That's nonsense.  Go look on, well, any site on the internet pretty much.  They sort game by platform.  Not by what controllers the game supports.  Come on, that's obviously not how it works.  And as for the Nintendo thing, have you forgotten that it's not only the N64 that has a RAM expansion which counts as a part of the main system, but also the Turbo CD and Saturn?  All three work the exact same way, as far as classification: They are not separate platforms.  The 64DD, which requires the N64 RAM expansion, is, though.  That's a full hardware addon.

That's your problem; you're trying to fit the PCE system into other system standards. When in fact, the PCE set its own standard of what's an addon and what's part of the console. The Duo over took the main system; it replaced it for the rest of the life of the system. The CD system, added very little; you can't compare it to the SegaCD which has so much hardware added on that it's almost its own system (add a video chip and it would be). Same can be said for the 32x; even more so because you could rig the 32X as a standalone system (has ram, video, audio, and processors - it's only missing gamepad inputs).

 What is the main purpose of the CD unit for the PCE? It adds a new storage medium. That's the main purpose of it. It didn't upgrade the graphical capabilities or the processing capabilities. Didn't add 3D. Yeah ok, it upgraded the sound (which would have happened anyway via hucard). The SNES did this with addon chips directly in the carts (as well as the NES), and they even added processors and other specialty chips. Those are mini-self contained addons. If the Duo is no part of the main system, then neither are carts on the SNES that employ such chips (especially the late gen ones).

I'm sorry, but this doesn't matter.  The Jaguar CD, Nintendo 64 Disk Drive, Famicom Disk System,  SFC Satellaview... outside of storage (or streaming fo rthe Satellaview), those addons all add either nothing or very little (FDS adds a sound channel or two, nothing else).  They are still addons.  They are still things which should be listed separately from the main system.  The Turbo CD works the same way.

Sure though, yeah, you do have to draw a line somewhere.  So the Turbo CD is a separate platform, but not really the Super or Arcade CD system cards, those I'd count as part of the Turbo CD library.  The same goes for Saturn or N64 games that support those systems' RAM expansions.  Or for the NES and SNES it doesn't matter what extra chips games use, they're all for those systems.  And no, requiring some special controller does not make a game something for a separate platform.  Those differences all matter, and should be noted somehow, but they're not quite enough to make the game something for an entirely separate platform -- the media format and what you're actually putting the game in matters a lot for that kind of distinction.

[SamIAm]

It's been forever, but I remember the Saturn having issues with quality FMV. This was a point of contention back in the day of PS vs Saturn. The Saturn FMV had some terrible looking artifacts in motion. At what point did they fix this?

 Even if the Saturn did use native 320 horizontal resolution for video, the advantage isn't as great 25% increase leads you to believe. For one, SDTVs played a factor and the output of the 320 resolution blurred enough on the Saturn to even make mesh transparency trick seem solid. That, and video is a tricky thing. Assuming high color images with nice gradients; vertical resolution makes much more so than horizontal resolution. Always has, always will (for video). There was a trick to re-encode DVD video from 704/720x480 res into 352x480 res (common for CVCDs/KVCDs at the time, also a legal format for DVD), and although the difference was half - the perceivable difference was much-much less than that. Some people couldn't even tell.

As for the Saturn, its FMV is all done via software codecs, so there's a great degree of variability in FMV quality throughout the library due to different codecs being used, as well as some versions being improved upon over time.

The most common codecs are variants of Cinepak and Trumotion, but there are a few more. The game Vatlva apparently uses a software MPEG codec that was compatible with VCD MPEG, but renders the image at a smaller resolution, in a box. I think it's called SOFDEC.

1995 Saturn games almost all have windowed, artifact-heavy FMV, but 1997 games on average look much better.

Over at the SegaXtreme forums, where the western Saturn emulator coders used to hang out, one person managed to rig a Saturn emulator in such a way as to be able to estimate how much idling the CPUs were doing over any given period of time. For the Saturn, a dual CPU system, this was really interesting because you could see which games were very well optimized to use both CPUs fully, which ones weren't, and which ones only used one CPU.

One surprising find was that a great deal of the games in the Saturn library use only one CPU for FMV decoding, but some (very nice looking) games used two. I'll see if I can't hunt up the thread.

And again, I have to say, the whole point was not that the PC-FX has awful FMV. It was that NEC/Hudson bet the farm on having the best FMV in town, and they didn't. The PSX could consistently produce slightly better FMV right from the start (64 more horizontal pixels may or may not be a big deal, but they'll sure break a tie), and the Saturn was not far behind in the beginning and caught up just fine in the later years.

By the way, though, I just have to say, the Saturn's mesh-transparency trick really doesn't work, and in S-Video, the meshing is clear as day

[TurboXray]

I'm sorry, but this doesn't matter.  The Jaguar CD, Nintendo 64 Disk Drive, Famicom Disk System,  SFC Satellaview... outside of storage (or streaming fo rthe Satellaview), those addons all add either nothing or very little (FDS adds a sound channel or two, nothing else).  They are still addons.  They are still things which should be listed separately from the main system.  The Turbo CD works the same way.

Except, the difference between all of those and the TG/PCE, is that they remained as addons. The CD unit became the main system, for the PCE. There is nothing else like that in history of gaming consoles. The Duo came out in 1991, less than half its life span. The Duo WAS the new system.

Sure though, yeah, you do have to draw a line somewhere.  So the Turbo CD is a separate platform, but not really the Super or Arcade CD system cards, those I'd count as part of the Turbo CD library. 

Why? If the CD games are a separate platform, then why not CD, SuperCD, and Arcade CD? Those cards are addons, with extra hardware in them, and are required to play those formats. Your logic doesn't make any sense; you're willing to dismiss the hardware requirements for each CD format and lump them together, but you're unwilling do to so for the hucard format.

[TurboXray]

By the way, though, I just have to say, the Saturn's mesh-transparency trick really doesn't work, and in S-Video, the meshing is clear as day

Work as in doesn't appear solid? Every instance of Saturn hooked up with composite on a sdtv BITD, looked solid on those meshes that I saw. But the point, even if the mesh was slight noticeable on some of the better SDTV sets under composite, is that resolution difference didn't have any advantage when the details were filtered out by the encoder chip via composite/rf. The higher resolution played more to an anti-aliasing effect for 3D rendering and the like. Given the limited bandwidth of the CD transfer (2x for all systems), I'd say it would have been a waste to go any higher res than 256. You're just throwing away bandwidth that could go back into the frame rate or better optimization for artifacts.

 Sherlock Holmes on the PCECD uses 512 res for the video (although the video frame isn't that wide). IMO, its a waste of bandwidth and frame rate. Just look at the SegaCD version which uses a lower res and looks fine.

 S-Video is a world of difference over composite (especially considering what most SDTVs did with the composite signal back then). It's the same on PS as well. PS has a global dither across the screen, which you couldn't really see unless you had S-Video cables, which I did buy and immediate was disgusted by it and went back to composite. Not many people bothered with s-video cables BITD. The dominate connection type for gamers was rf and composite (in NA, anyway). Hell, even in the PS2 era - composite was still heavily dominate.

[SamIAm]

I meant that it doesn't "work" as in it doesn't produce a convincing transparency. Even with a crappy old TV using composite (which is a situation I was stuck in several years ago), it's not too hard to make out each individual opaque pixel in the mesh, as long as it's not moving too quickly. Maybe RF on an ancient crappy 80s TV is different, I don't know.

EDIT: One extra thing to note, since we are talking in part about a Japan exclusive system here, is that TV technology in the average Japanese consumer's home has always been a little better than in the west. S-Video was probably much more widely used in Japan in the mid 90s.

You have a fair point about bandwidth possibly going to waste on the extra 64 pixels during FMV playback. For normal graphics, though, I think the difference is significant enough in any situation that 320 is preferable, even if you wind up needing more VRAM.

I think it would be interesting to survey the PS1 library and see how many games used the 256 pixel width mode for FMV compared to how many used 320. If the majority went with 320, then there's an argument to be made that the extra pixels really did make things look better.

And this still doesn't affect my opinion that the PC-FX did not have the best FMV playback of its generation, despite all the emphasis they gave it. Take another look at the screenshots of Der Langrisser, and compare the PS1 and PC-FX. They're both 256 pixels across, and they both have essentially the same quality. The option to go with 320 on the PS1 gives it the tie-breaking advantage.

As an aside, you may be interested to know that CD drive read-speed does not seem to be the primary limiting factor in FMV quality for the 32-bit systems. It's just as much a matter of space on the CD and processing bandwidth. A lot of games, including PC-FX games, have a data rate that is well below 300kBps, even though the drive is capable of streaming more. During the Zeroigar FMV subtitling project, we found that the average transfer rate of the original video was around 227kBps, but the drive on a real system could handle 300 just fine. This did a lot to help us keep the quality high even though we were working with a lossy source.

[TurboXray]

As an aside, you may be interested to know that CD drive read-speed does not seem to be the primary limiting factor in FMV quality for the 32-bit systems. It's just as much a matter of space on the CD and processing bandwidth. A lot of games, including PC-FX games, have a data rate that is well below 300kBps, even though the drive is capable of streaming more. During the Zeroigar FMV subtitling project, we found that the average transfer rate of the original video was around 227kBps, but the drive on a real system could handle 300 just fine. This did a lot to help us keep the quality high even though we were working with a lossy source.

I wonder if it's a hardware limitation, or related limitation. On the PCE, the original system card library for reading in DATA is about 90k a second. The drive is spec'd at 150k (obviously, for red book audio to be compliant). Late gen PCE games use custom libs to access the CD hardware directly, and bump up the data reading rate from 90k to about ~122k (huvideo uses this custom lib too). Still not the max 150k. Everyone assumes the PCE CD units handle 150k data transfer rate, but even with the update libs (which I ripped and used for my own stuffs), still didn't hit that peak rate. I never tried using the ADPCM CD data dma mode to reach max transfer rate (assuming you can even read from ADPCM ram while it's being filled on the CD side).

[SamIAm]

Well, the thing is, when we hard subbed the video rips and re-encoded them using a PC-FXGA development tool, we set the max data rate at 300k and came out with files that were much bigger than the originals. And yet, they worked fine on real hardware, with no modifications made to the game itself other than the offsets for the video locations.

Another interesting case is the remake of Lunar 2. The PS1 version is two CDs, while the Saturn version is three, and there is no difference in content. It can only follow that the PS1 version streams FMV data at lower rate. This isn't surprising, because again, Lunar 2 has maybe the best looking FMV on the Saturn.

[TheClash603]

Agreed the PC-Engine is a completely separate beast than any other add-on in the history of gaming.

Did the CDX take over as the primary Sega system?  Was the "Jag Duo" ever released?  The only time in the history of the medium where there was a mainstream shift and adoption of a system from one thing (Core) to another (Duo) was the PC-Engine.

For that reason, CD games must be included as standard games for the system, whereas you cannot do the same for the Sega CD or similar "add-ons.".  The CD component of the PC-E was no longer an add-on for the second half of the system's life, it WAS the system.

[A Black Falcon]

I'm sorry, but this doesn't matter.  The Jaguar CD, Nintendo 64 Disk Drive, Famicom Disk System,  SFC Satellaview... outside of storage (or streaming fo rthe Satellaview), those addons all add either nothing or very little (FDS adds a sound channel or two, nothing else).  They are still addons.  They are still things which should be listed separately from the main system.  The Turbo CD works the same way.

Except, the difference between all of those and the TG/PCE, is that they remained as addons. The CD unit became the main system, for the PCE. There is nothing else like that in history of gaming consoles. The Duo came out in 1991, less than half its life span. The Duo WAS the new system.

Well, there are other combo systems out there of course -- the Sega CDX has been mentioned, but there's also the Sharp Twin Famicom, with both a Famicom and Disk System built into one unit.  There are some other examples of combo systems.

As for using success as a separator -- that is, saying that because the Turbo CD was more successful than other addons it deserves to be counted separately than other addons and isn't really an addon -- that is something I strongly disagree with.  For example, one big issue I have with listings of console generations is that the new consoles of 1982 are (wrongly) listed on all the big sites as being "2nd generation" platforms.  That's ridiculous of course; the Atari 5200, Colecovision, and Vectrex are in no way 2nd-gen.  They are early 3rd gen systems, which released less than a year before the NES (looking at first-release-anywhere, not just the US).  And yet most people dump those systems in with systems released five or six years earlier, simply because the systems of 1982 all crashed and burned in the crash, while the NES released in the West several years later and brought back the market.  I don't think that that should matter -- what matters is when it was first released and the systems' hardware power, and by those standards, there is absolutely no question that the 5200 and Colecovision are much closer to the NES than stuff like the 2600 or Odyssey 2.

So, that the Turbo CD was much more successful than other addons is irrelevant when considering whether it's an addon or not.  However, there is one "addon" that we need to consider, that I think you're not thinking of -- the Xbox 360 Kinect.  The Kinect was hugely successful -- it sold tens of millions of units.  24 million Kinects sold as of early 2013, meaning that a solid third or so of X360 owners have a Kinect.  The Kinect was also bundled in with the system at all higher-priced system tiers after its release.  Of course, on the other hand, maybe the Kinect should be considered to be just an accessory, like a light gun or PS2 camera, and not a full addon?  After all, as I said, that some games require the NES Zapper don't make those games for a separate platform, just a subset of the main platform that requires a specific accessory.  The Kinect is kind of like that... except it DOES have hardware in it beyond just a camera.  It is true that the processor on the Kinect 1 was removed for cost reasons, so it relies on using the X360's CPU, but still, it's more than just a camera.  The Kinect is right there on the boundary between accessory and addon.

Why? If the CD games are a separate platform, then why not CD, SuperCD, and Arcade CD? Those cards are addons, with extra hardware in them, and are required to play those formats. Your logic doesn't make any sense; you're willing to dismiss the hardware requirements for each CD format and lump them together, but you're unwilling do to so for the hucard format.

It's generally agreed on that just adding more RAM doesn't make something a new platform.  Of course it's an enhancement, but it doesn't fundamentally change the platform as much as something like a disc drive does.  It's just not the same.

Agreed the PC-Engine is a completely separate beast than any other add-on in the history of gaming.

Did the CDX take over as the primary Sega system?  Was the "Jag Duo" ever released?  The only time in the history of the medium where there was a mainstream shift and adoption of a system from one thing (Core) to another (Duo) was the PC-Engine.

For that reason, CD games must be included as standard games for the system, whereas you cannot do the same for the Sega CD or similar "add-ons.".  The CD component of the PC-E was no longer an add-on for the second half of the system's life, it WAS the system.

How successful a platform is really should not affect how it is classified.  Those are two completely separate issues.

Also, this "most successful addon ever", the Turbo CD/Duo, only managed to sell to ~40%, at the absolute most (that is, if you wrongly presume that most Duo buyers had previously owned HuCard systems; there's no way to know that, so the truth is somewhere between 20% and 40%), of the PCE/TG16 HuCard system owning userbase.  The most successful addon ever wasn't owned by a majority of people who owned the system.  And even if we count Kinect 1 as an "addon", it wasn't either; as I said, 1/3rd at best, depending on where X360 sales are now.  I don't think any addon ever has been, if there's something I'm not thinking of.

[pulstar]

I think the point you're missing (intentionally?) that is being raised is that the Duo became the PC Engine system from 1991 onwards. The PC Engine evolved into the Duo so it ceased to be an add on any longer, it was the system. This did not happen for the Mega CD, Jaguar CD, 64DD, Famicom Disk System etc.

[o.pwuaioc]

I think the point you're missing (intentionally?) that is being raised is that the Duo became the PC Engine system from 1991 onwards. The PC Engine evolved into the Duo so it ceased to be an add on any longer, it was the system. This did not happen for the Mega CD, Jaguar CD, 64DD, Famicom Disk System etc.

 O:) 

[pulstar]

But the MultiMega/CDX didn't evolve naturally into the Megadrive from the point it was released, they ran concurrently. The PC Engine evolved into the Duo, partly because of the limitation of the Hucard format. I'm sure I read somewhere the PCE was supposed to be a CD based system from the outset but cost and availability stopped them from doing it? Can anybody confirm this (in other words, did I just dream this to try and fit my argument ) ?

[CrackTiger]

I think the point you're missing (intentionally?) that is being raised is that the Duo became the PC Engine system from 1991 onwards. The PC Engine evolved into the Duo so it ceased to be an add on any longer, it was the system. This did not happen for the Mega CD, Jaguar CD, 64DD, Famicom Disk System etc.

I think that the point you're missing is that since Nintendo failed time and time again at something, anyone else succeeding at the same thing can't be acknowledged as legitimate. Doing so would admit to Nintendo being fallible.

[SamIAm]

If I recall correctly, this whole tangent started over whether it was valid to compare the number of SNES games released every year to the number of HuCard and CD releases combined.

If the PCE and the CD expansion are some super-special case that needs its own special classification, then at least you have to admit that you can't really compare it head-on with the SNES or the Genesis in certain aspects. Apples and oranges, right?

Although I posted way back that I don't think we'll ever agree to what the PCE really "is", I personally think it's dubious and even lazy to just say that the PCE and the CD expansion are the same thing by just calling them one console. If the CD expansion goes beyond being an add-on, then to me it looks more like it's a new console entirely that grew out of the PCE. It sure as hell was priced like one.

I'd love to expand on this viewpoint, but I have to get to work. Ta ta!

[TheClash603]

I think the point you're missing (intentionally?) that is being raised is that the Duo became the PC Engine system from 1991 onwards. The PC Engine evolved into the Duo so it ceased to be an add on any longer, it was the system. This did not happen for the Mega CD, Jaguar CD, 64DD, Famicom Disk System etc.

I think "(intentionally)" is the key point of your paragraph.  I don't think Black Falcon trolling for the purpose of trolling, as I honestly believe he believes the things he is saying.  However, the fact remains that there is no other system that was ever replaced by a new variation of the system as its primary SKU.  The Twin Famicom is another good example where a niche item was introduced (this one by a third party), but there was clearly no intention for this new product to take over as the main SKU.  That is why the PC-Engine is different, the Duo was clearly INTENDED TO REPLACE THE ORIGINAL SKU, whereas the other systems mentioned were introduced as niche alternatives with no intention of replacing the primary SKU.

If the CDX was truly intended to replace the Genesis, then Sega would've moved all its AAA titles to the Sega CD format.  This did not happen, as it had happened with the PC-E.

As for using success as a separator -- that is, saying that because the Turbo CD was more successful than other addons it deserves to be counted separately than other addons and isn't really an addon -- that is something I strongly disagree with.  For example, one big issue I have with listings of console generations is that the new consoles of 1982 are (wrongly) listed on all the big sites as being "2nd generation" platforms.  That's ridiculous of course; the Atari 5200, Colecovision, and Vectrex are in no way 2nd-gen.  They are early 3rd gen systems, which released less than a year before the NES (looking at first-release-anywhere, not just the US).  And yet most people dump those systems in with systems released five or six years earlier, simply because the systems of 1982 all crashed and burned in the crash, while the NES released in the West several years later and brought back the market.  I don't think that that should matter -- what matters is when it was first released and the systems' hardware power, and by those standards, there is absolutely no question that the 5200 and Colecovision are much closer to the NES than stuff like the 2600 or Odyssey 2.

This is another odd viewpoint you hold.  I don't think that "generations" were ever defined by a year, but rather an event.  The Famicom/NES was an absolute game changer to the industry, which is why it ushered in the new "generation" on its own.  I tend to argue that the "generation" thing is foolish in general, why do these systems need to be grouped in some manner?  But, if you are going to do it logically, then you need to take into account key events and not just dates.

Think about other entertainment, such as music.  When Elvis or the Beatles hit the scene, everything changed.  When Babe Ruth stepped on the baseball field, the entire game changed.  When Nintendo's Famicom hit stores, gaming changed and everything on the shelf even months prior didn't matter anymore.

When historians talk about real history, there are various "ages."  These ages are all triggered by key events, which is the sane way of looking at history.  If your timelines only looks are the start and end of each year and clumps all that middle stuff on the line together because it is the same year so it must be similar, then you are not plotting things appropriately.

[SamIAm]

This is another odd viewpoint you hold.  I don't think that "generations" were ever defined by a year, but rather an event.  The Famicom/NES was an absolute game changer to the industry, which is why it ushered in the new "generation" on its own.  I tend to argue that the "generation" thing is foolish in general, why do these systems need to be grouped in some manner?  But, if you are going to do it logically, then you need to take into account key events and not just dates.

Think about other entertainment, such as music.  When Elvis or the Beatles hit the scene, everything changed.  When Babe Ruth stepped on the baseball field, the entire game changed.  When Nintendo's Famicom hit stores, gaming changed and everything on the shelf even months prior didn't matter anymore.

When historians talk about real history, there are various "ages."  These ages are all triggered by key events, which is the sane way of looking at history.  If your timelines only looks are the start and end of each year and clumps all that middle stuff on the line together because it is the same year so it must be similar, then you are not plotting things appropriately.

Interesting, and a fair viewpoint.

I take it you don't consider the 3DO and the Jaguar to be part of the 32-bit generation?

I'm not being sarcastic; I actually think there's a fair case to be made that they aren't.

[spenoza]

I would argue there's often a weird, transitional generation. 3DO, at least, falls into that category. Some would argue the PC Engine does. The PC Engine may have heralded the 16-bit generation, but in so many ways it was rooted very solidly in the 8-bit generation of the NES. The reason I think the PC Engine fits better in the 16-bit generation is because it was popular and hung in there and was ultimately able to be competitive. The 3DO, however, didn't last long into the 32-bit generation and so it really wasn't a part of it. It fizzled out before the 32-bit generation hit its stride.

[A Black Falcon]

I think the point you're missing (intentionally?) that is being raised is that the Duo became the PC Engine system from 1991 onwards. The PC Engine evolved into the Duo so it ceased to be an add on any longer, it was the system. This did not happen for the Mega CD, Jaguar CD, 64DD, Famicom Disk System etc.

I don't understand why you think this matters.  Systems are what they are, they don't change classification midlife.

I think that the point you're missing is that since Nintendo failed time and time again at something, anyone else succeeding at the same thing can't be acknowledged as legitimate. Doing so would admit to Nintendo being fallible.

The Famicom Disk System and Satellaview weren't big failures, though.  They weren't as successful as Nintendo might have wanted, sure,  but they weren't big failures.  Of Nintendo's addons only the 64DD was a big failure.  So as usual your Nintendo-bashing attack is off base.

I think the point you're missing (intentionally?) that is being raised is that the Duo became the PC Engine system from 1991 onwards. The PC Engine evolved into the Duo so it ceased to be an add on any longer, it was the system. This did not happen for the Mega CD, Jaguar CD, 64DD, Famicom Disk System etc.

 O:) 

As I said in my last post that's irrelevant.  How successful an addon is doesn't matter, what it is matters.

I can't think of even one reason why the fact that the Duo replaced the PCE/TG16, while the Twin Famicom did not replace the Famicom and the CDX did not replace the Genesis, is at all relevant when classifying them.  All that matters for classification is that they are addons, with combo systems that released later.

I think "(intentionally)" is the key point of your paragraph.  I don't think Black Falcon trolling for the purpose of trolling, as I honestly believe he believes the things he is saying.  However, the fact remains that there is no other system that was ever replaced by a new variation of the system as its primary SKU.  The Twin Famicom is another good example where a niche item was introduced (this one by a third party), but there was clearly no intention for this new product to take over as the main SKU.  That is why the PC-Engine is different, the Duo was clearly INTENDED TO REPLACE THE ORIGINAL SKU, whereas the other systems mentioned were introduced as niche alternatives with no intention of replacing the primary SKU.

Seriously, your argument has no basis! 

First, is there any basis for thinking that the Turbo CD was ACTUALLY originally "intended to replace" the PCE HuCard system?  It was intended as a supplement, but as a replacement?  Hudson's continued support for HuCards up until the end of '93 suggests otherwise, considering that they invented the thing.  It was meant as a supplement which, as SamIAm said and I completely agree with, after the SNES released became the main focus as a way of differentiating the TG16/CD from the SNES.  But that probably wasn't the original intent.  It's something which NEC decided on later, and a majority of their audience did not follow them on that route, given the under-40%-adoption-rate-by-HuCard-system-owners fact.

As for the Duo, the Duo isn't a new system, just a TG16+CD combo system.  The Turbo CD predates it by years, and its place in classification had already been permanently set as an addon.  You can't go back and change that years after the fact, that's just silly!  The Duo is not a new system.  It's a combo system.

As far as classification goes it doesn't matter, just like the Twin Famicom and CDX  don't matter.  I can't understand why you'd say that somehow the TG16 and CD are the same system.  I think it's fairly obvious to anyone who's played both of them that they are not, just like the NES and Famicom Disk System are not, and the Genesis and Sega CD are not.  That the Turbo CD became the only addon to outlast its base system is a very interesting and cool historical fact, but for classification purposes it's irrelevant.  And again, the HuCard system sold better!  Remember the sales SamIAm has shown.  ~6 million systems with HuCard vs. ~2 million CD systems, 1 million of those the Duo systems which count towards both.  The Turbo CD outlasted its originator, the only time an addon has ever done that, but it didn't outperform it.  Addons never do that.

If the CDX was truly intended to replace the Genesis, then Sega would've moved all its AAA titles to the Sega CD format.  This did not happen, as it had happened with the PC-E.

This is completely irrelevant when it comes to classification, as I said.

As for using success as a separator -- that is, saying that because the Turbo CD was more successful than other addons it deserves to be counted separately than other addons and isn't really an addon -- that is something I strongly disagree with.  For example, one big issue I have with listings of console generations is that the new consoles of 1982 are (wrongly) listed on all the big sites as being "2nd generation" platforms.  That's ridiculous of course; the Atari 5200, Colecovision, and Vectrex are in no way 2nd-gen.  They are early 3rd gen systems, which released less than a year before the NES (looking at first-release-anywhere, not just the US).  And yet most people dump those systems in with systems released five or six years earlier, simply because the systems of 1982 all crashed and burned in the crash, while the NES released in the West several years later and brought back the market.  I don't think that that should matter -- what matters is when it was first released and the systems' hardware power, and by those standards, there is absolutely no question that the 5200 and Colecovision are much closer to the NES than stuff like the 2600 or Odyssey 2.

This is another odd viewpoint you hold.  I don't think that "generations" were ever defined by a year, but rather an event.  The Famicom/NES was an absolute game changer to the industry, which is why it ushered in the new "generation" on its own.  I tend to argue that the "generation" thing is foolish in general, why do these systems need to be grouped in some manner?  But, if you are going to do it logically, then you need to take into account key events and not just dates.

Think about other entertainment, such as music.  When Elvis or the Beatles hit the scene, everything changed.  When Babe Ruth stepped on the baseball field, the entire game changed.  When Nintendo's Famicom hit stores, gaming changed and everything on the shelf even months prior didn't matter anymore.

That's an America-centric viewpoint which is irrelevant nonsense from a technological point of view, or an international point of view.  When Nintendo's Famicom hit stores in July 1983, everything did not change.  All other platforms were instantly dated, as it was the most powerful console yet by a good margin, but the Colecovision, 5200, or Sega's Colecovision-based SG-1000, which, remember, launched in Japan the same week that the Famicom did -- were competitive.  Early Famicom games, which didn't use any mapper chips, have better graphics than anything on those other systems -- compare NES to Colecovision Donkey Kong to see that -- but they're clearly in the same generation of systems.  Again, look at the Colecovision homebrew game Ghostblaster, it looks about as good as a mid '80s NES game.  It took a few years until, thanks to better mapper chips, NES games really crushed the competition, and even then Ghostblaster shows that the Colecovision hardware wasn't completely hopelessly dated when really pushed.  Conveniently, this happened at about the same time that the system released in the West, so here we had Super Mario Bros. at launch in fall 1985, shortly after the game released in Japan.  But look at the kinds of games available on the Famicom over the two years before SMB's release.  In terms of both graphics and gameplay, they're nowhere near its level.  The release list was thin, too -- in 1983 and most of 1984 Nintendo was pretty much the only publisher on the Famicom, and they had a slow release schedule.  It's only once third-party games started appearing in '84-'85 that the library expanded.  And pretending that the NES is a 1985 console and its first two years don't exist and don't matter simply because they only happened in Japan is absolutely wrong!  They matter just as much as any other part of its history.

So should we say that 1983-1985 Famicom stuff is "2nd gen" but 1985-1994 Famicom/NES stuff is "3rd gen" because the NES mapper chips were a generational leap?  I guess you COULD, but I would strongly disagree.  No, it's all 3rd gen.  People knew it at the time when the Colecovision released that it was ushering in a new console generation, and it was.  It and the 5200 are in the same place as the Turbografx in the 4th generation, the Jaguar or 3DO for the 5th generation, or the Dreamcast for the 6th generation.  For another game example, in addition to Ghostblaster, look at Wonder Boy on the SG-1000.  It's clearly a lot worse looking than the NES version, Adventure Island, but it's also clearly not a full generation behind.

When historians talk about real history, there are various "ages."  These ages are all triggered by key events, which is the sane way of looking at history.  If your timelines only looks are the start and end of each year and clumps all that middle stuff on the line together because it is the same year so it must be similar, then you are not plotting things appropriately.

Wha... no, of course generations are tied to years!  For instance, the Wii is a 7th gen console, not 6th.  Everyone not crazily trolling it knows this.  This is true despite its "last-gen" power.  The same is true for the Wii U this gen.  When a system releases is absolutely key.  System power does not determine which generation a system is in.  When it released does.  Video game console generations are not like historical periods; they are more like, well, human generations.  What separates them is time, not specific events.  There's a reason the word "generations" is used for them, after all!  The way that specific events matter is that when a new, more powerful system releases, after enough time has passed since the last-gen systems to make a generational gap (in gaming, a couple of years), it's a new console generation.

Now, there are some weird things which are hard to classify -- handhelds in the late' 90s and early '00s are probably the best example of this, or for a console case what about the Neo-Geo CD -- but they are the exceptions.

I would argue there's often a weird, transitional generation. 3DO, at least, falls into that category. Some would argue the PC Engine does. The PC Engine may have heralded the 16-bit generation, but in so many ways it was rooted very solidly in the 8-bit generation of the NES. The reason I think the PC Engine fits better in the 16-bit generation is because it was popular and hung in there and was ultimately able to be competitive. The 3DO, however, didn't last long into the 32-bit generation and so it really wasn't a part of it. It fizzled out before the 32-bit generation hit its stride.

You really need to play games like Gex, Blade Force, Star Fighter, and The Need for Speed.  The 3DO is a 5th gen console, absolutely no question.

If I recall correctly, this whole tangent started over whether it was valid to compare the number of SNES games released every year to the number of HuCard and CD releases combined.

You're right, it did.

If the PCE and the CD expansion are some super-special case that needs its own special classification, then at least you have to admit that you can't really compare it head-on with the SNES or the Genesis in certain aspects. Apples and oranges, right?

If you're going to combine TG16 and CD (inc. Super/Arcade Cards), then of course you must compare it to the Genesis + Sega CD + 32X, and SNES + Satellaview.  Anything else would be an obviously biased double standard.  Either a console and its addons are one system, or they aren't.  I know that online listing sites have to draw a line somewhere for what is a "system", and they list the Sega CD and 32X and 64DD as "systems" but not, say, the Turbo Super or Arcade CD or N64 Expansion Pak Required titles, and I agree with those classifications, but once you've chosen where to draw your line at what is an addon and what isn't, you have to be consistent.  The things some people said here about how the 32X or Sega CD don't really count because they have more processors in them while the Turbo CD doesn't, or whatever... come on, that's just being biased.  Either count addons or don't!  Splitting hairs like that purely to get the better outcome for NEC isn't right (and something similar wouldn't be right in favor of any other console manufacturer either, of course).

So yes, you're right if you're saying that consistency is better.

Although I posted way back that I don't think we'll ever agree to what the PCE really "is", I personally think it's dubious and even lazy to just say that the PCE and the CD expansion are the same thing by just calling them one console. If the CD expansion goes beyond being an add-on, then to me it looks more like it's a new console entirely that grew out of the PCE. It sure as hell was priced like one.

I agree, except on the 'it's a completely new system' point; sure it was priced like one, but it really isn't one.  But otherwise, yeah, you're right.

[SamIAm]

Although I posted way back that I don't think we'll ever agree to what the PCE really "is", I personally think it's dubious and even lazy to just say that the PCE and the CD expansion are the same thing by just calling them one console. If the CD expansion goes beyond being an add-on, then to me it looks more like it's a new console entirely that grew out of the PCE. It sure as hell was priced like one.

I agree, except on the 'it's a completely new system' point; sure it was priced like one, but it really isn't one.  But otherwise, yeah, you're right.

Yeah, that was just a hypothetical statement. I don't really think think of the PCE-CD as a new system. I think of it as an add-on just like the Sega CD.

[shubibiman]

I think the point you're missing (intentionally?) that is being raised is that the Duo became the PC Engine system from 1991 onwards. The PC Engine evolved into the Duo so it ceased to be an add on any longer, it was the system. This did not happen for the Mega CD, Jaguar CD, 64DD, Famicom Disk System etc.

 O:) 

How many Super CD and hucard games released after the Duo was released ? Compare with the same figures for MD and Mega CD games and you'll understand why your comparison is pointless.