@jygsaw Square was really into the SNES CD. Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger wre in development for it. Nintendo has licensed 7th Guest (PC FMV game) for it. There were rumors that Dragon's Lair and Myst would have also been on it
@RupeeClock patents expire after 20 years. It's why you see so many clone consoles for the the 8 and 16 bit generations. As long as they don't use any PlayStation trademarks, he should be in the clear.
@Zenszulu PS1 and Saturn hadn't been released in the US when Phantasy Star 4 launched February 1995. But yeah JRPGs were a niche in the US at that time, especially on the Genesis. They were more popular on the SNES but still considered a niche, I believe the best selling JRPG on the SNES was Final Fantasy 3 (6) and it had only sold 300,000 copies.
@sdelfin I think GEMS is unfairly demonized. It was mostly due to lazy musicians/programmers for all the bad sound effects and music. It was a tool to make it easier for devs to the Genesis's sound system. Devs had the option of creating their own sounds in GEMs but many just used the default.
@snaphat it's probably using a cheap FPGA rather than an ASIC for the cart versions. That's why it's $80 for the cart versions. It's similar to the MSU-1 enhancement chip for the SNES that homebrew devs made that basically allowed the SNES to access up to 4GB of data.
@iidxgold they're also paying 7 full time employees. YouTube has been giving out less money per view now for awhile. That's why every YouTuber has pushing merch sales, sponsorships and Patreon.
Whoa. I didn't know European sales figures were that low. So the only place the Dreamcast was successful was North America? More than half of all Dreamcast sales (5 million) came from North America.
@RetroGames But it did affect the consumer. Prices of SNES games on average were more expensive. It's one of the reasons the Genesis was competitive with the SNES even though Nintendo had a 90% monopoly of the video game industry in the United States from 1986 to 1990. NES games were on average $40. Genesis games were $50 and SNES games were $60. That $10 difference was huge in the early 90s, especially since back than parents bought games for their kids. It's basically why Nintendo lost 3rd party support during the N64 era and was killed by the PS1. N64 games were $70 on average, while PS1 games were $50. Publishers also only had to pay Sony $5 per unit sold, while they had to pay Sega $8 and Nintendo was still charging $10. There were lower manufacturing costs since Sony allowed publishers to print their own discs, while publishers had to go to Nintendo to manufacture carts. Higher costs always affect consumers. Which is why Nintendo is winning now. They learned that the high price of N64 and going just for graphics isn't worth it. Since the Wii, Nintendo has had the cheapest console.
Like I explained to you earlier. Nintendo overcharged 3rd parties. That's why those 3rd party games were more expensive than Zelda. 1st party games, aka games published by Nintendo, were cheaper than games published by 3rd parties. Remember every 3rd party was charged a $10 licensing fee per cart . That's on top of the additional charge for manufacturing each cart, which had to be bought from Nintendo. Also, like I explained to you earlier, costs were also dependent on the size. Zelda was 8Mb, which compared to the games on the ad was miniscule. For example Street Fighter 2 Turbo was 20Mb, more than twice the size of Zelda, which is why it was $70. The enhancement chips greatly added cost to the games, just adding a battery back up would increase the cost by $2.50 per cart for the publisher, they would than up charge more onto consumers because retailers would take a percentage of each sale. So yes enhancement chips cost more.
It seems you have a weird objective just to prove your point without looking at facts. Look I understand your a Nintendo fanboy and some of the other commentators are obviously Sega fanboys who are also using opinions as facts. But the fact is enhancement chips increase cost.
@RetroGames it was generally $5 to $10 more dependent on cart size. Here is an ad from Electronics Boutique. Both Zelda and Starfox were 8Mb games. Zelda also had a battery back up. Zelda is $50 and Starfox is $60. Even Mario Kart, which had a 4Mb cart but had a DSP expansion chip, costs more than Zelda at $55 https://huguesjohnson.com/scans/EBMay93/EBMay93-VG-06_2400.png
Publishers were very wary of the prices of carts and many games were cut down due to costs, even if it would have performed better. Here is an article about the development of Another World (Out of this World) port of SNES. It could have been 60fps with the Super FX but the publisher didn't want to incur the costs and the dev was forced to use the cheapest cart so the SNES version only ran at 20fps. https://fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons_SNES/
@RetroGames SNES games with add-on chips did costs more than the average SNES game. The price of games was highly dependent on how large a game was, if it had battery back up, if it had an add-on chip, if it was a licensed game and if it was published by Nintendo. I remember buying Chrono Trigger for $80 back in 1995. It costs that much because it was a 32MB cart with battery back up. Nintendo would undercut the prices of their own games compared to 3rd party games because Nintendo wasn't paying any licensing fees to themselves. Nintendo was charging higher fees than Sega and only Nintendo manufacture the carts. SNES games were usually $5 more than Genesis games because of that. Here is a Toys R Us catalog from 1993 when Mortal Kombat launched. SNES was $70, Genesis was $60. https://cdn.retrojunk.com/article-images/0zEX3imG6pCJz0q4g5iMG.jpg https://cdn.retrojunk.com/article-images/Qg5F187TLMw85NibM8JDy.jpg
@RetroGames yeah the cart was much taller than a regular Genesis cart. Though there were many irregular Genesis carts since some publishers manufactured their own carts like EA.
Virtua Racing costs $99 at launch in the US. The average price of Genesis games was $60 at that time. Though it was highly dependent on the cart size and if it had battery backup. For example, Phantasy Star 4 was also $99 at launch.
Comments 16
Re: Turns Out Ken Kutaragi Has A Nintendo PlayStation Kicking Around In A Cupboard
@jygsaw Square was really into the SNES CD. Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger wre in development for it. Nintendo has licensed 7th Guest (PC FMV game) for it. There were rumors that Dragon's Lair and Myst would have also been on it
Re: Turns Out Ken Kutaragi Has A Nintendo PlayStation Kicking Around In A Cupboard
@87th
Yeah, if was more like the PC-Engine CD-ROM/Turbo-CD than the Mega/Sega-CD. Just a CD drive and more RAM.
It is rumored though that the Phillips variant would have had the SuperFX and SA-1 built in to more compete with the Mega/Sega-CD.
Re: Almost 20 Years After It Ended Production, A Brand-New PS1 Motherboard Is In Development
@RupeeClock patents expire after 20 years. It's why you see so many clone consoles for the the 8 and 16 bit generations. As long as they don't use any PlayStation trademarks, he should be in the clear.
Re: Sega Wanted Phantasy Star IV To Flop In The West, Hence The Sky-High $100 Price
@Zenszulu PS1 and Saturn hadn't been released in the US when Phantasy Star 4 launched February 1995. But yeah JRPGs were a niche in the US at that time, especially on the Genesis. They were more popular on the SNES but still considered a niche, I believe the best selling JRPG on the SNES was Final Fantasy 3 (6) and it had only sold 300,000 copies.
Re: The Genesis Just "Broke Another Myth" With This Amazing Rendition Of A Classic Castlevania Tune
@sdelfin I think GEMS is unfairly demonized. It was mostly due to lazy musicians/programmers for all the bad sound effects and music. It was a tool to make it easier for devs to the Genesis's sound system. Devs had the option of creating their own sounds in GEMs but many just used the default.
Re: Interview: How NES RPG Former Dawn Is Bringing CD-ROM Power To Nintendo's 8-Bit System
@snaphat it's probably using a cheap FPGA rather than an ASIC for the cart versions. That's why it's $80 for the cart versions. It's similar to the MSU-1 enhancement chip for the SNES that homebrew devs made that basically allowed the SNES to access up to 4GB of data.
Re: Legendary YouTube Channel Mega64 Is Facing Closure
@iidxgold they're also paying 7 full time employees. YouTube has been giving out less money per view now for awhile. That's why every YouTuber has pushing merch sales, sponsorships and Patreon.
Re: Anniversary: 25 Years Ago, Sega Launched Dreamcast In Europe With One Of The Most Esoteric Campaigns Ever
Whoa. I didn't know European sales figures were that low. So the only place the Dreamcast was successful was North America? More than half of all Dreamcast sales (5 million) came from North America.
Re: MiSTer FPGA's Next Trick? Launching Games From CD
The Analogue Duo reads off disc, so it is certainly possible. With a Mister Disc reader it should be able to load all CD base systems.
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@RetroGames But it did affect the consumer. Prices of SNES games on average were more expensive. It's one of the reasons the Genesis was competitive with the SNES even though Nintendo had a 90% monopoly of the video game industry in the United States from 1986 to 1990. NES games were on average $40. Genesis games were $50 and SNES games were $60. That $10 difference was huge in the early 90s, especially since back than parents bought games for their kids.
It's basically why Nintendo lost 3rd party support during the N64 era and was killed by the PS1. N64 games were $70 on average, while PS1 games were $50. Publishers also only had to pay Sony $5 per unit sold, while they had to pay Sega $8 and Nintendo was still charging $10. There were lower manufacturing costs since Sony allowed publishers to print their own discs, while publishers had to go to Nintendo to manufacture carts.
Higher costs always affect consumers. Which is why Nintendo is winning now. They learned that the high price of N64 and going just for graphics isn't worth it. Since the Wii, Nintendo has had the cheapest console.
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@RetroGames
Like I explained to you earlier. Nintendo overcharged 3rd parties. That's why those 3rd party games were more expensive than Zelda. 1st party games, aka games published by Nintendo, were cheaper than games published by 3rd parties. Remember every 3rd party was charged a $10 licensing fee per cart . That's on top of the additional charge for manufacturing each cart, which had to be bought from Nintendo.
Also, like I explained to you earlier, costs were also dependent on the size. Zelda was 8Mb, which compared to the games on the ad was miniscule. For example Street Fighter 2 Turbo was 20Mb, more than twice the size of Zelda, which is why it was $70.
The enhancement chips greatly added cost to the games, just adding a battery back up would increase the cost by $2.50 per cart for the publisher, they would than up charge more onto consumers because retailers would take a percentage of each sale.
So yes enhancement chips cost more.
It seems you have a weird objective just to prove your point without looking at facts. Look I understand your a Nintendo fanboy and some of the other commentators are obviously Sega fanboys who are also using opinions as facts. But the fact is enhancement chips increase cost.
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@RetroGames it was generally $5 to $10 more dependent on cart size. Here is an ad from Electronics Boutique. Both Zelda and Starfox were 8Mb games. Zelda also had a battery back up. Zelda is $50 and Starfox is $60. Even Mario Kart, which had a 4Mb cart but had a DSP expansion chip, costs more than Zelda at $55
https://huguesjohnson.com/scans/EBMay93/EBMay93-VG-06_2400.png
Publishers were very wary of the prices of carts and many games were cut down due to costs, even if it would have performed better. Here is an article about the development of Another World (Out of this World) port of SNES. It could have been 60fps with the Super FX but the publisher didn't want to incur the costs and the dev was forced to use the cheapest cart so the SNES version only ran at 20fps.
https://fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons_SNES/
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@RetroGames SNES games with add-on chips did costs more than the average SNES game. The price of games was highly dependent on how large a game was, if it had battery back up, if it had an add-on chip, if it was a licensed game and if it was published by Nintendo. I remember buying Chrono Trigger for $80 back in 1995. It costs that much because it was a 32MB cart with battery back up.
Nintendo would undercut the prices of their own games compared to 3rd party games because Nintendo wasn't paying any licensing fees to themselves. Nintendo was charging higher fees than Sega and only Nintendo manufacture the carts. SNES games were usually $5 more than Genesis games because of that.
Here is a Toys R Us catalog from 1993 when Mortal Kombat launched. SNES was $70, Genesis was $60.
https://cdn.retrojunk.com/article-images/0zEX3imG6pCJz0q4g5iMG.jpg
https://cdn.retrojunk.com/article-images/Qg5F187TLMw85NibM8JDy.jpg
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@RetroGames yeah the cart was much taller than a regular Genesis cart. Though there were many irregular Genesis carts since some publishers manufactured their own carts like EA.
Wrestling with Gaming has a great vid on this: https://youtu.be/x0qe1FNqtCo?si=9K1IFqz2D4Pj-4oq
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
Virtua Racing costs $99 at launch in the US. The average price of Genesis games was $60 at that time. Though it was highly dependent on the cart size and if it had battery backup. For example, Phantasy Star 4 was also $99 at launch.
Re: A Powerful New FPGA Rival To MiSTer And MARS Is In Development
Lite has the same amount of Logic Elements as Mars. So it should be able to do the Dreamcast.
Phat specs look insane. 588K Logic Elements!!!!!!