@RetroGames As @Hikingguy already pointed it out, there is a good reason why the SNES homebrew dev scene is almost no existent compared to the Sega MegaDrive scene despite being more popular.
The main and simple reason is that the system is a pain to develop for. It has neat GFX hardware features for sure (lot of palettes / colors, transparencies effect, mode 7, HDMA...) but that comes with lot of constraints and limitations, on many aspects the system is actually weaker than the Sega Mega Drive (even on GFX as the sprites capabilities). The MD 68000 CPU is a major advantage of the Sega system compared to the 65816 but definitely not the only one, the SNES does not have much "hidden potential" to reveal, it has already been pushed very far back in time. It's why we had all these enhancement chips and also why today we saw a lot of those fast ROM or SA1 hacks to help in removing game slowdowns.
In fact the Sega Mega Drive has much more potential out of the box and what we're seeing these last years prove it. Having a better SDK for the SNES would help in getting more SNES homebrews for sure, but it will also show off the SNES limitations compared to the Sega Mega Drive.
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Re: You're Not Seeing Things, This Is Star Fox On The Sega Mega Drive / Genesis
@RetroGames As @Hikingguy already pointed it out, there is a good reason why the SNES homebrew dev scene is almost no existent compared to the Sega MegaDrive scene despite being more popular.
The main and simple reason is that the system is a pain to develop for. It has neat GFX hardware features for sure (lot of palettes / colors, transparencies effect, mode 7, HDMA...) but that comes with lot of constraints and limitations, on many aspects the system is actually weaker than the Sega Mega Drive (even on GFX as the sprites capabilities). The MD 68000 CPU is a major advantage of the Sega system compared to the 65816 but definitely not the only one, the SNES does not have much "hidden potential" to reveal, it has already been pushed very far back in time. It's why we had all these enhancement chips and also why today we saw a lot of those fast ROM or SA1 hacks to help in removing game slowdowns.
In fact the Sega Mega Drive has much more potential out of the box and what we're seeing these last years prove it. Having a better SDK for the SNES would help in getting more SNES homebrews for sure, but it will also show off the SNES limitations compared to the Sega Mega Drive.