Hucard / SuperCD are NOT the same system...

[mickcris]

the snes mini actually does not have svideo out of the box, only composite.

[wildfruit]

(populous already adds 32k of ram)

Does it?

[seieienbu]

The snes mini also doesn't have RGB output without a mod.  The mini is further removed from the SNES than a Duo to a Duo R is certainly.

[CrackTiger]

The snes mini also doesn't have RGB output without a mod.  The mini is further removed from the SNES than a Duo to a Duo R is certainly. 

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

[CrackTiger]

(populous already adds 32k of ram)

Does it?

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

[TurboXray]

StarDust4Ever: So you're never going to own an actual PCE CD unit, right?

[SamIAm]

You mean like a $399 PlayStation VR that's really going to need you to upgrade your PlayStation 4 to the new 4.5 Neo model in order to run it properly? 

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

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

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

Tierborn
Apr 1 2016 9AM

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

[StarDust4Ever]

StarDust4Ever: So you're never going to own an actual PCE CD unit, right?

I never said that. It's just not in the cards at this time.

[SamIAm]

I encourage you all to take a good look at some of the discussions going on around the internet about the PS4.5. The amount of "This is bullshit!" sentiment is through the roof.

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

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

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

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

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

I hope Japanese gamers were looking at the CD system and the SuperGrafx (the latter being pure insanity) with the same skepticism that gamers are today when they're looking at the PS4.5. Consumers should be smart. To quote George Carlin, whoever coined the phrase "Let the buyer beware" was probably bleeding from the asshole (Pro-click).

[StarDust4Ever]

Obviously the marketplace is not today what it was in the early 90s. Sony / Microsoft are trying desperately to 1up each other. People are jumping ship off the console bandwagon for mobile and Steam. Looking at the pricetag of these things, it's not just more beefier hardware but both companies coming out with their VR gear. Adjusted for inflation the cost of a VR unit plus the "v1.5" consoles is comparable to the CD attachment thingy from Hudson.

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

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

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

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

[OldMan]

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

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

[Psycho Punch]

*whispers* 3d coprocessor...

[SignOfZeta]

There is no relationship to the way game systems were sold in the 80s and now.

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

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

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

[wilykat]

Just a minor nitpick with Genesis stuff: you can't use 32x and Power Base Converter at the same time. With PCE, you could use any consoles with any CD and any peripheral and all games* would work.  Supergrafx even have a switch for some PCE game that might not like extra hardware.

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

[elmer]

In the interest of fairness, I'll share a couple of things I've just read on the PC Engine's Japanese wikipedia page.
...
Also, the article talks about the Core Concept (コア構想), an official term that I know I've seen elsewhere. The idea, as we all basically know already, was to have one heart, or one driving "engine" at the center of a variety of peripherals including different media formats.

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

It was an exciting time. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think it's pretty simple.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's not been the case for a while.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Errrr ... what???

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

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

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

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

[ccovell]

Some food for thought:  When the PCE had its big announcement in the summer of 1987, going on sale that October, the following expansions were also announced and "pictured": CD-ROM, LCD TV attachment, keyboard, computer connectivity, modem.

[StarDust4Ever]

To avoid kicking a dead horse regarding Hucard Vs CD, there's still a whole lot to love in the PC Engine/Turbografx library if you're a SHMUP fan. I found this supposedly complete list:
https://archives.tg-16.com/complete_list_of_tg16_pce_shooters.htm
of PCe shooters, and there's a good deal more of them in Hucard format than CD. True a few epic games, such as Lords/Gate of Thunder, Star Parodier, hell even Cho Aniki as well as others, are only available on CDROM, and a few of the Hueys might be garbage, or barely fit in the SHMUP genre if at all, but there seems to be a lot to love available on Hucard, SHMUP or otherwise, and Hudson did continue to release games on Hucard for as long as the Duo was in production, both in Japan and US. Call it a fan service or what have you, but I'm glad these titles exist. I do kinda wish more bankswitched cards with Super Street Fighter style mappers existed. I guess we got lucky with that one.

Maybe someone makes an Everdrive-like attachment allowing the loading of disc images off the CDROM. It could probably be pulled off easily with a CLPD, FPGA, RAM, and an SD slot with support for SDHC and XC cards. RGB + AV out could be provided on the same PCB. No leaking caps or broken gear mechs to deal with...

[CrackTiger]

Some food for thought:  When the PCE had its big announcement in the summer of 1987, going on sale that October, the following expansions were also announced and "pictured": CD-ROM, LCD TV attachment, keyboard, computer connectivity, modem.

What's cool about that is they were all announced months before the PC Engine even launched and they all came out.

To avoid kicking a dead horse regarding Hucard Vs CD, there's still a whole lot to love in the PC Engine/Turbografx library if you're a SHMUP fan. I found this supposedly complete list:
https://archives.tg-16.com/complete_list_of_tg16_pce_shooters.htm
of PCe shooters, and there's a good deal more of them in Hucard format than CD. True a few epic games, such as Lords/Gate of Thunder, Star Parodier, hell even Cho Aniki as well as others, are only available on CDROM, and a few of the Hueys might be garbage, or barely fit in the SHMUP genre if at all, but there seems to be a lot to love available on Hucard, SHMUP or otherwise, and Hudson did continue to release games on Hucard for as long as the Duo was in production, both in Japan and US. Call it a fan service or what have you, but I'm glad these titles exist. I do kinda wish more bankswitched cards with Super Street Fighter style mappers existed. I guess we got lucky with that one.

Maybe someone makes an Everdrive-like attachment allowing the loading of disc images off the CDROM. It could probably be pulled off easily with a CLPD, FPGA, RAM, and an SD slot with support for SDHC and XC cards. RGB + AV out could be provided on the same PCB. No leaking caps or broken gear mechs to deal with...

There are roughly the same number of CD shooters as HuCard and more than a few "epics".

[SamIAm]

Some food for thought:  When the PCE had its big announcement in the summer of 1987, going on sale that October, the following expansions were also announced and "pictured": CD-ROM, LCD TV attachment, keyboard, computer connectivity, modem.

Interesting.

It does not actually say CD-ROM. It says CDs for background music. That is the only mention of how it will work; there is nothing about software on discs. I wonder when that info came out?

Also, the system costing 30,000 yen with one game and only coming with one controller is enough to make us go "ouch".

There is no relationship to the way game systems were sold in the 80s and now.

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

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

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

My only concern in those days was where my pacifier was, but here are two things to consider.

1 - In Japan of the 1980s, a strong majority of the gamer demographic still hadn't finished high school yet, and almost nobody was over 30. Even amidst the famous economic bubble, to which we probably owe Hudson trying something like a CD attachment in the first place, most gamers didn't have the disposable income for that devil-may-care approach to picking up pricy toys.

I looked up "PC Engine memories" in Japanese. One guy said "The PC Engine was what rich kids' parents bought them after they got bored of the Famicom."

And of course, NEC wanted to get into the console business in the first place to indoctrinate kids into the NEC brand.

2 - Japanese people have always been fairly picky and savvy consumers, if not without their quirks. I've read a lot of text from the period that shows that Japanese gamers were already well aware of how software made the hardware and how important 3rd party support was. Price, of course, was always in there. With hi-fi AV equipment back then or smartphones today, the features and fashionability may have a high turnover rate, but at least they always work. In the case of gaming systems, however, I think Japanese people knew that if it didn't build up a library of software, it was worthless.

I agree, the pile-up of bodies on the battlegrounds of the console wars has had an effect. However, I don't agree that it really changed everything. The PC Engine with the CD system was quite an extravagance, and people weren't going to buy it just because it was the latest thing.

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

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

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

It was an exciting time. 

Perhaps.

But I still think that the CD system looking effectively like a console of its own doesn't require an awareness of the console-concept to work.

You were a computer programmer in the 80s; your perceptions are colored, too. What if you were somebody's mom? A housewife, with a salaryman husband, and now your kid wants you to buy this dumb CD thing? He tells it's just a peripheral like the light gun for his old Famicom, but you look at the price, and you see a separate shelf at the store full of different games. When you gave him the PC Engine on his last birthday, you told him it was the only new console he could have. Now what?

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

The advertisement above looks like CDs are an extra. It looks like the Hucard is going to detect a CD player and use it for BGM. A library of exclusive CD games looks like something else...and you know what I'm going to say that is. 

How was all this advertised, really? I include myself when I say that we probably can't get an accurate sense of how consumers perceived the system until we see more of how it was presented.

None of the peripherals in the ad ccovell posted actually say anything about exclusive games. For all consumers know, every single game will still be playable on a base system.

Errrr ... what???

It's dishonest if Hudson didn't want people to think that the CD system was going to have exclusive games. It would be just like Sony advertising their new system as the PS4.5 while quietly acknowledging internally that it's going to get a lot of exclusive content and effectively become its own console.

The CD system as it was released probably made some consumers afraid that Hudson and their third parties were either going to spread themselves too thin, or that they were going to abandon the Hucard system early.

The latter might have been exactly the decision Hudson made in 1991. How do you think the gamer with the base PCE only felt when Hudson implied "You just need to get this 'peripheral' and you'll be fine?"

What's cool about that is they were all announced months before the PC Engine even launched and they all came out.

Well, two out of five, anyway.

[StarDust4Ever]

Some food for thought:  When the PCE had its big announcement in the summer of 1987, going on sale that October, the following expansions were also announced and "pictured": CD-ROM, LCD TV attachment, keyboard, computer connectivity, modem.

Interesting.

It does not actually say CD-ROM. It says CDs for background music. That is the only mention of how it will work; there is nothing about software on discs. I wonder when that info came out?

Also, the system costing 30,000 yen with one game and only coming with one controller is enough to make us go "ouch".

There is no relationship to the way game systems were sold in the 80s and now.

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

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

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

My only concern in those days was where my pacifier was, but here are two things to consider.

1 - In Japan of the 1980s, a strong majority of the gamer demographic still hadn't finished high school yet, and almost nobody was over 30. Even amidst the famous economic bubble, to which we probably owe Hudson trying something like a CD attachment in the first place, most gamers didn't have the disposable income for that devil-may-care approach to picking up pricy toys.

I looked up "PC Engine memories" in Japanese. One guy said "The PC Engine was what rich kids' parents bought them after they got bored of the Famicom."

And of course, NEC wanted to get into the console business in the first place to indoctrinate kids into the NEC brand.

2 - Japanese people have always been fairly picky and savvy consumers, if not without their quirks. I've read a lot of text from the period that shows that Japanese gamers were already well aware of how software made the hardware and how important 3rd party support was. Price, of course, was always in there. With hi-fi AV equipment back then or smartphones today, the features and fashionability may have a high turnover rate, but at least they always work. In the case of gaming systems, however, I think Japanese people knew that if it didn't build up a library of software, it was worthless.

I agree, the pile-up of bodies on the battlegrounds of the console wars has had an effect. However, I don't agree that it really changed everything. The PC Engine with the CD system was quite an extravagance, and people weren't going to buy it just because it was the latest thing.

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

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

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

It was an exciting time. 

Perhaps.

But I still think that the CD system looking effectively like a console of its own doesn't require an awareness of the console-concept to work.

You were a computer programmer in the 80s; your perceptions are colored, too. What if you were somebody's mom? A housewife, with a salaryman husband, and now your kid wants you to buy this dumb CD thing? He tells it's just a peripheral like the light gun for his old Famicom, but you look at the price, and you see a separate shelf at the store full of different games. When you gave him the PC Engine on his last birthday, you told him it was the only new console he could have. Now what?

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

The advertisement above looks like CDs are an extra. It looks like the Hucard is going to detect a CD player and use it for BGM. A library of exclusive CD games looks like something else...and you know what I'm going to say that is. 

How was all this advertised, really? I include myself when I say that we probably can't get an accurate sense of how consumers perceived the system until we see more of how it was presented.

None of the peripherals in the ad ccovell posted actually say anything about exclusive games. For all consumers know, every single game will still be playable on a base system.

Errrr ... what???

It's dishonest if Hudson didn't want people to think that the CD system was going to have exclusive games. It would be just like Sony advertising their new system as the PS4.5 while quietly acknowledging internally that it's going to get a lot of exclusive content and effectively become its own system.

* Great arguments all around. You seem fluent in your ability to read Japanese as well, giving us valuable insight besides just the pictures in the article. So the CDROM was originally advertised as something that would enhance Hucard games, not replace them? That's sneaky...

*Ditto on the example with for instance the mom telling her child he/she cannot have another console. The Super CD was double the price of the base PC Engine or Core Grafx, so it is plausible a lot of consumers would have stopped there.

~For me, it's not just about the cost of a Duo or Briefcase, though I do consider it a bit steep for what it offers as a retro console, but more about adding another console to my collection. My collection is cramped and a bit cluttered as I currently also have to sleep in my game room. Space is premium until I can afford my own place. I think space is a bigger issue than cost even. Games are easy to store...

*Did the high price of the CDROM attachment cause consumers to dump or trade in their PCe/Coregrafx for a Super Famicom, or did they just patiently wait for new Hucard releases in the latter days? Judging by the fact most late Hucard releases are highly expensive and sought after, sales of the Hucard format post Duo days may have dropped off. Not too different from modern day gamers to ignore last gen tech for whatever's current and hot.

*Finally, I do believe the CDROM format did greatly fragment the existing market. Sure there are analogs such as Nintendo's N64 expansion pak, or the DSi and New 3DS, but mostly games designed around these enhancements worked out of the box with the original system, but gained performance benefit or additional functionality when used with the new or upgraded console. I think initially the ".5" gen Xbone and PS4 upgrades will do this, but over time there will be significant feature creep until games inevitably start to run poorly with the old console, or not at all. Whether this fragments the market or if the MS/Sony consoles continue to coexist on incremental upgrades remains to be seen. I do believe the VR fad will release to great fanfair but ultimately die off, either being dead on arrival like virtual Boy, or becoming a fad that slowly loses it's appeal similar to how motion gaming did, or remain a niche with dedicated fanbase similar to Neo Geo, due mainly to the high pricetag of headsets. One of those three.

~And I won't much rant on Nintendo as I could as easily write a book on the subject. I love their fun centric games, and NX will be a day one purchase for me, but I fear the Wii-U will be remembered much like Sega's Saturn and the NX will become Nintendo's "Dreamcast." I pray this won't be the case and the NX becomes their savior, but Nintendo is and has been slipping both in the hardware and software department...

[CrackTiger]

Well, two out of five, anyway.

As with the context of what it was like at the time this was all happening, just because you're not familiar with it, it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Also, the system costing 30,000 yen with one game and only coming with one controller is enough to make us go "ouch".

Consumers Distributing catalog from late 1987:




In October 1987, $240 U.S. = over 35,000 JPY.

Other interesting products in the same catalog:



NES Power Pad (no console) $120!

NES SMB Set (NO $48 ZAPPER INCLUDED!) advertised on the same page: $149.

NES SMB Set + Power Pad = $40,000 JPY.

At least the Power Pad received much better software support than the rip-off PC Engine CD-ROM.

[SamIAm]

Well, two out of five, anyway.

As with the context of what it was like at the time this was all happening, just because you're not familiar with it, it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Am I mistaken?

I see the Tsuushin booster (aka modem), a PC link, and a keyboard. Did those actually come out?

Also, the system costing 30,000 yen with one game and only coming with one controller is enough to make us go "ouch".

At least the Power Pad received much better software support than the rip-off PC Engine CD-ROM.

Hey man, I didn't write it. They did, in that article.

[StarDust4Ever]

Well, two out of five, anyway.

As with the context of what it was like at the time this was all happening, just because you're not familiar with it, it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Also, the system costing 30,000 yen with one game and only coming with one controller is enough to make us go "ouch".

Consumers Distributing catalog from late 1987:



In October 1987, $240 U.S. = over 35,000 JPY.


Other interesting products in the same catalog:


NES Power Pad (no console) $120!

NES SMB Set (NO $48 ZAPPER INCLUDED!) advertised on the same page: $149.

NES Action Set + Power Pad = $40,000 JPY.


At least the Power Pad received much better software support than the rip-off PC Engine CD-ROM.

So it's like how PS3 was the cheapest BluRay player on the block for a while, with the PC Engine CDROM playing CDs. Couldn't the CDROM unit be used as a standalone player?

Also I have a CIB "NES Action Set." Serial is fairly early, 4.8 million, smooth surfaced finish (not textured like the later models). There is a Kmart price sticker on the box that reads $109. It came with Mario/Duck Hunt, 2 controllers, AND the Zapper! 40,000 yen seems really steep even if you subtract the worthless PowerPad...

EDIT: Check your facts! "NES Action Set" couldn't have been released in Japan because it was called the Famicom there and had a completely different form factor.

[CrackTiger]

CD-ROM and CD software prices from Dec 1988 PC Mag ad:

EDIT: Check your facts! "NES Action Set" couldn't have been released in Japan because it was called the Famicom there and had a completely different form factor.

Consumers Distributing was a North American retailer, hence all of the English.

When I first typed that out, I assumed that for that kind of money, it must be the Action Set. After noticing the Zapper price I doubled checked and that NES set doesn't include it. I forgot to also change that second line to "SMB Set".

[TurboXray]

The advertisement above looks like CDs are an extra. It looks like the Hucard is going to detect a CD player and use it for BGM. A library of exclusive CD games looks like something else...and you know what I'm going to say that is. 

Except that's not how it worked. Magazines and advertisements don't always get everything right or are dumb downed. There's an interview with Hudson employees that were part of the development process of the CD, and DATA was part of it from the very beginning - because originally they have envisioned storing the DATA in analog format (like a tape drive) - as a redbook track. The technology was so new back then, that something like this wasn't absurd. Though we're lucky they switched to direct digital data (imagine how slow the load times would be for analog mode!).

* Great arguments all around.

Do you guys take turns high five'n and slapping each other on the back too?


 SamIam: The problem with your arguments, is that you've already decided on a point of view and are just looking for stuff to support it, rather presenting an adequate case. You've brought up some interesting points, but that's all they are - and now you're just fishing for whatever makes your argument look compelling (but doesn't add any substance).

[SignOfZeta]

You guys obsess over 60,000 yen CD decks or whatever but you really need to take a look at the MSRP of other things. Walkmans, car stereos, Izod shirts, ghetto blasters, audio in particular was really big back then. Component systems were the way serious music listening was done and every JP electronics company made lots of them.

It's also important to understand that if you are a 24 year old Japanese yuppie in 1989 Tokyo you probably don't need a car so while rent is high it's pretty much your only expense. This is exactly the sort of shit people would buy. The closest thing in the US would be New York City, where nobody can afford to own any real estate whatsoever and there's no room for any more cars. Young people living and working there often have huge quantities of disposable income. It's not uncommon to see people wearing $1000 headphones in NYC or Tokyo even if they only make $60-70k a year whereas in the Midwest that money gets blown on giant lawn mowers and property takes and the amount of gasoline you have to buy because for some stupid fucking reason you live over an hour away from work. That shit.

Another thing to point out, Americans are actually kinda poorer than people in other countries in a lot of ways. We make good money when you look at a mean average but there are huge geographical regions where "gas station clerk" is the only job. Minimum wage hasn't gone up in ages and the middle class hasn't had a real pay raise in 30-35 years. It would be hard to sell the PCE at those prices in the US. And in fact it was harder to sell it at even lower prices. In Japan though they are really only selling to two or three densely populated cities. And while I don't have any sales figures it's pretty obvious that moving PCEs was not a problem since there are several hundred CD games and the PCE is one of the longest lived consoles in video game history.

In short, this money thing that you guys are so singularly obsessed over held back the PCE from going against the SFC but it wasn't honestly a big problem. An arcade game was 100 yen a pop when in the US $0.50 was on the high side. Do you know what it costs for a vehicle inspection in Japan? The US doesn't even have vehicle inspections in most states, largely because even the $35 that NC charges is considered too high.

The money seriously isn't an issue and even if it was...that doesn't make it another system.

Also, regarding the CDROM2 not being called that in early stages, just "CD PLAYER". The same terminology was occasionally used in the English press and certainly the vernacular. When I worked at a video game stores than rented Sega CDs back in the day people would come in and ask for the "CD PLAYER" for the Genesis.

I realize not everyone was around back then but do try to have some understanding of how much a culture 5000 miles and 30 years ago might be different from what we see today in front of us. Japan clearly liked CDROM2. Not as much as HuCARD, but there are multiple reasons for that other than the high price.

[elmer]

* Great arguments all around. You seem fluent in your ability to read Japanese as well, giving us valuable insight besides just the pictures in the article. So the CDROM was originally advertised as something that would enhance Hucard games, not replace them? That's sneaky...

Sycophant this much elsewhere? 

Yes, SamIAm is fluent in Japanese ... he works and lives there.

Most of those of us giving him a "hard time" in this argument know him, like him and consider him a friend. Some of us are even working with him on translating Japanese PC Engine games into English.

If you had read some of the other sections here more often, you'd have seen that.

You, OTOH ... have yet to make a good argument, and you have a really annoying habit of repeating entire messages as a "quote" without any editing to show exactly what you're responding to.

If you can't listen to, and really understand, what others are saying, then please at least have the courtesy to learn how to actually use the forum software to edit your responses so that they're a bit more succinct.

It's also important to understand that if you are a 24 year old Japanese yuppie in 1989 Tokyo you probably don't need a car so while rent is high it's pretty much your only expense. This is exactly the sort of shit people would buy. The closest thing in the US would be New York City, where nobody can afford to own any real estate whatsoever and there's no room for any more cars. Young people living and working there often have huge quantities of disposable income. It's not uncommon to see people wearing $1000 headphones in NYC or Tokyo even if they only make $60-70k a year whereas in the Midwest that money gets blown on giant lawn mowers and property takes and the amount of gasoline you have to buy because for some stupid fucking reason you live over an hour away from work. That shit.

This is the point that I've apparently been failing to make clear.

SamIAm is focusing on the ridiculousness of 12-14 year olds asking their Mom and Dad to buy them a $399 CD add-on for their console. He's right ... that's crazy. Only the really rich kids get to do that.

But what he's ignoring are all of the kids from 1979-1985, the kids whose parents bought an Atari 800, or a Commodore PET, or a TRS-80 ... or a PC-8801 in Japan.

The generation that were growing up in the days of the Atari VCS and the Intellivision, and the ColecoVision.

I'm pretty sure that Japan must had its own equivalents of all of those TV-Game machines (we didn't even use the term "console" back then).

A lot of those kids were growing up, and in their first jobs, when the PC Engine came out.

They may have snuck out to go to arcades when they were younger ... and maybe even still did to meet friends.

They had disposable income.

IMHO, that's who the CDROM2 add-on was probably aimed at. Just like the modem and the keyboard that ccovell posted the pictures of.

The "base" Core System was for everyone. The bells-and-whistles, like the CDROM2 were for those that could afford it ... just like the "early-adopters" have always been targeted.

The price of the CDROM add-on did eventually come down ... and SamIAm has already shown that.

At that point, with a lower price point, and an established library, then maybe "little Johnny" could pester his parents to splash out for the upgrade.

[CrackTiger]

I grew up with the Intellivision and snuck into the age restricted arcade in town late at night a few years younger than the minimum age. I paid the full launch price for a Turbo-CD and Ys I & II that was never sent and within a year bought another Turbo-CD at the first price drop. Both times with my own money that I earned while 13 - 14 years old.

By the time the SNES launched, the Turbo-CD was $150 and the TG-16 with extra software was $80.

None of this is a theory of what it must have been like at the time.

[ccovell]

I looked up "PC Engine memories" in Japanese. One guy said "The PC Engine was what rich kids' parents bought them after they got bored of the Famicom."

While this perception might be true to some extent, much of it sounds like class-warfare-style sour grapes, and isn't a topic that one goes back to over and over if one actually has the system.  Spectrum owners criticized the C-64 and BBC micro for being overpriced, but such criticism didn't make the C-64 qualitatively any worse, nor the BBC any better.  Or another example, UK C-64 owners criticized the disk drive as "too expensive" while American and German C-64 owners considered it essential for doing anything on the system.

Anyway, that article that I linked was from summer 1987, a time when there had never been a game on CD-ROM on any format, so the fact that the reporters worded it as "play a game with CD music as the BGM" shows more about their collective inexperience with the technology, than NEC's lack of details/information, I think.

[edit] About all those peripherals all coming out... well, the modem and keyboard were manufactured, but not sold; the PC link was not made by NEC on a consumer level, unless you count the Develo system made years later... but I consider that a hobbyist kit.

[StarDust4Ever]

Sycophant this much elsewhere? 

I am done with this thread.

If you can't listen to,

I know how to

and really understand,

use quote tags

what others are saying,

but without a WYSIWYG editor

then please at least have the courtesy

it's annoying as hell

to learn how to actually use the forum

to type quote blocks

software to edit your responses

50 billion times

so that they're a bit more succinct.

so I just lump them all at the end.

PS: IBTL!