Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[Cyprian]

Originally Posted by pandy71

56k was used as 3D graphic accelerator and dot product is one of key operation in vector graphics.

true, but one remark, for dots, 68k and 56k uses BCLR and BSET instructions (1 or 2 cycle in case of DSP)
That 12 cycles "dot product" mentioned by you is the algorithm used in audio processing, FFT, not vector graphics. This is just a similarity of names.
But who knows, maybe we can somehow use FFT for vector graphics

Originally Posted by pandy71

I didn't called Falcon design outdated - it was way newer in approach than A1200 but cost reduction approach made Falcon way worse machine than it could be - having 32 bit CPU/RAM interface and FAST 56k connection (DMA drive?) with bigger DSP RAM will be beneficial for overall Falcon performance.

I agree, that was done for cost cutting in home edition of Falcon.
But still, after cost cutting it wasn't worst than other 32bit machines in terms of memory bandwidth.
Anyway Atari had semi pro edition Falcon Microbox with full 32bit CPU path. Microbox was ready to release in '92.

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

The 16-bit CPU bus included to increase compatibility with the ST, coupled with it's notorious lack of compatibility with the ST.

Interesting, do you have source of that news?
I heard a different story, which is documented on Atari-forum.
Generally, Falcon is very compatible, almost all ST applications works fine (thanks to the OS), with more colors, more ram and better sound.

Regarding games, there are some issues, similar to 1200, issues relate do the CPU. Different CPU with a different stack size, different instructions (some old are forbidden), instruction cache and data cache (not present in Amiga 1200).
Amiga has WHDLoad, Atari has Backward (old solution) and HAGA/HAGE(new solution)

Anyway, 16bit has nothing to do with compatibility.

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

They should've just "clean breaked" it and made Falcon a new fully 32-bit architecture.

Falcon Microbox hard 32bit CPU path, it was ready to release in '92. Chipsets and motherboards were produced, you can try to buy them there: https://wizztronics.com/atari-microbox/

Originally Posted by hammer

Falcon's 16-bit front-side bus 68030 was mocked.

A1200 has baked in 32-bit Fast RAM controller without DRAMs.

That 16bit is much slower than 12~15MB/s 386 but is faster than 32bit A1200/A4000 bus:


RAM Bus Bandwidth for CPU 16bit access:
- Amiga 1200: Read: 2.2MB/s Write: 3.5MB/s (2 chipset cycles 3.5MHz per 32bit)
- Amiga 4000: Read: 2.3MB/s Write: 2.3MB/s (2 chipset cycles 3.5MHz per 32bit)
- Atari: Read: 5.4MB/s Write: 6.5MB/s (2 chipset cycles 8MHz per 16bit)


RAM Bus Bandwidth for CPU 32bit access:
- Amiga 1200: Read: 4.5MB/s Write: 6.9MB/s (2 chipset cycles 3.5MHz per 32bit) (BusSpeedTest 0.19)
- Amiga 4000: Read: 4.6MB/s Write: 4.6MB/s (2 chipset cycles 3.5MHz per 32bit) (BusSpeedTest 0.19)
- Atari: Read: 5.4MB/s Write: 6.5MB/s (2 chipset cycles 8MHz per 16bit)

[oscar_ates]

Originally Posted by TEG

The lack of at least 2MB Fast memory in the CD32 is indeed an indication that the management had lost the capacity to read the market, even at a basic level.

Would be very interesting too, to have details about how decisions were made during the period of the CD32. I don't think we know much about it.

CD32 was missing the speed part indeed. I do not understand why they poured millions on the CDTV though, to me it was obvious that there was no market for it at homes with computer illiterates, there was no justifying point to buy it for the computer people as well.

No games used more than few MBytes on both system, 600MB storage capacity was wasted. We see later big enough games on PS1, which could handle them. Only FMV addition would not save the day.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by Cyprian

true, but one remark, for dots, 68k and 56k uses BCLR and BSET instructions (1 or 2 cycle in case of DSP)
That 12 cycles "dot product" mentioned by you is the algorithm used in audio processing, FFT, not vector graphics. This is just a similarity of names.
But who knows, maybe we can somehow use FFT for vector graphics

For me this is dot product (not setting pixel on/off): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_pr...useskin=vector
And accordingly to my knowledge in 3D you are operating with vectors (but perhaps i'm wrong on this - sorry).

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

CD32 was missing the speed part indeed. I do not understand why they poured millions on the CDTV though, to me it was obvious that there was no market for it at homes with computer illiterates, there was no justifying point to buy it for the computer people as well.

No games used more than few MBytes on both system, 600MB storage capacity was wasted. We see later big enough games on PS1, which could handle them. Only FMV addition would not save the day.

For me the CD32 with its 2x CD Rom was designed around FMV games.
Microcosm is much better on it than others version, even better than the 3DO one. The best version of a Bad game
Sadly (thankfully in fact ) the FMV hype lasted a couple of years. Commodore bet on the wrong horse (and every FMV games for the CD32 were cancelled anyway. )

[TEG]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

For me the CD32 with its 2x CD Rom was designed around FMV games.

Sony, in a remarkable moved, solved the problem by integrating real time decompression of the data in the PS1.

C= was the king of this kind of tricks once a time in their history. They could have think of it while working on on the CDTV II.


Jay magic had been lost.

[oscar_ates]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

For me the CD32 with its 2x CD Rom was designed around FMV games.
Microcosm is much better on it than others version, even better than the 3DO one. The best version of a Bad game
Sadly (thankfully in fact ) the FMV hype lasted a couple of years. Commodore bet on the wrong horse (and every FMV games for the CD32 were cancelled anyway. )

I will have have a look at microcosm, is it a bad game really?

By the way we reached 200 pages, congrats everybody and maybe see you at the 300th page also

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by TEG

Would be very interesting too, to have details about how decisions were made during the period of the CD32. I don't think we know much about it.

I wondered that for many years, but I think the truth is very boring. They ran out of R&D money and their last roll of the dice was to reuse as much stuff they already had for the A1200 production with cost reduction wherever possible.
There seems to have been zero thought about any sort of future market alignment.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by TEG

Sony, in a remarkable moved, solved the problem by integrating real time decompression of the data in the PS1.

C= was the king of this kind of tricks once a time in their history. They could have think of it while working on on the CDTV II.

When, with which product?

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

I wondered that for many years, but I think the truth is very boring. They ran out of R&D money and their last roll of the dice was to reuse as much stuff they already had for the A1200 production with cost reduction wherever possible.
There seems to have been zero thought about any sort of future market alignment.

You might be forgetting that they already tried 'market alignment' in several directions, and it didn't work. The A1200 was better aligned than the A1000, A2000, A3000, CDTV, Plus 4, C128, C64GS, C65...

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

CD32 was missing the speed part indeed. I do not understand why they poured millions on the CDTV though, to me it was obvious that there was no market for it at homes with computer illiterates, there was no justifying point to buy it for the computer people as well.

It wasn't obvious to Philips, Sony or Microsoft. At this time home computers were still a niche product. The industry was eying up those masses of 'computer illiterates' and wondering how to get them onboard. Turns out all they needed was a cheaper computer with a better user interface.

The other thing the 'illiterates' needed was a reason to get a computer, which was the internet. 1995 was when it all came together, with Windows 95 and Internet Explorer, and ISPs such as Compuserve and America Online. FMV then became a big deal too, only now called 'streaming media'.

No games used more than few MBytes on both system, 600MB storage capacity was wasted. We see later big enough games on PS1, which could handle them. Only FMV addition would not save the day.

No games used more than a few megabytes because the media didn't suit it. Even if you had a hard drive you still had to get the game onto it, which was a pain when it came (as it had to) on floppy disks.

Yesterday I attempted to get Doom onto my 386SX system. It doesn't have a CD-ROM drive, network card or USB so the only option was floppy disks. I would need to copy the images files onto 4 floppies. After the 2nd disk failed to verify I gave up. Looks like my only option will be to pull the hard drive and install it into a more modern machine that has an IDE interface.

CD-ROM broke down the barrier to larger games. If the game only took up 50MB the other 600MB wasn't 'wasted', it was just spare. It could be used for other stuff if you could be bothered creating it, eg. background music, instructions, demos of other games. But if it wasn't used it didn't matter - the CD had provided what was needed, a single disc that cost much less and was a lot more user-friendly than 30 floppy disks!

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by TEG

The lack of at least 2MB Fast memory in the CD32 is indeed an indication that the management had lost the capacity to read the market, even at a basic level.

Wrong. Commodore asked developers whether it should have more RAM or a cheaper price, and they went for cheaper price. Note that the 2MB DRAM in the A1200 cost Commodore $53, more than all the other chips combined.

Although it was making some sense, in the A1200, to not put Fast to do not conflict, at an electronic level, with future expansions ; in the CD32 it does not made sense. You don't buy a console to extend it.

It did make sense. Firstly the CD32 had to be cheap. Put FastRAM on it and it wouldn't be. Secondly it was part of the Amiga family, specifically the A1200. It was expected that many games would be designed to run on both, so they had to work without FastRAM. Thirdly, what real difference would it make? Compared to the previous Amiga 'games machine' (A500), the A1200/CD32 already had double the memory, more than twice the CPU power, 8 times more colors and 60% faster blitter. If that wasn't enough you were never going to be satisfied.

The concept being to be the more "plug an play" as possible and with the most power. C= attitude was like having a super weapon in the pocket (the fast ram architecture ready) since 8 years and not using it when they needed it the most.

Run a game like Dread on a stock A1200, and then with FastRAM. Does it feel like a 'super weapon' or just a bit faster?

But perhaps the console was made this way due to financial constraints and C= not enable, or not wanted, to pay for 4MB supply.

It wasn't whether Commodore could afford it, but where the retail price would land. It would make the CD32 significantly more expensive than an A1200, and more expensive than a Sega Mega Drive with Mega CD. It would be priced outside the market it was targeting.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Promilus

Well how many times you can hear the same arguments over and over with absolutely no correlation with reality?

I say MOS IC manufacturing plant - underdeveloped, underinvested ... He says leakage and penalty. Reality check - AGA chips has to be outsourced to 3rd parties to manufacture and the company who took over the plant made business on it...

CSG was able to fabricate Alice.

https://bigbookofamigahardware.com/b...000plusaga.jpg
With the AA3000+ prototype, Alice was fabricated by CSG while Lisa was fabricated by VTI (VLSI Technology, Inc).

My UK A1200 Rev 1D4's Alice was fabricated by CSG.

Lisa was problematic. AGA Lisa was implemented in 1.5 um process.

Commodore has used 1.5 um for fabricating Alice.

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/vti/vl86cx/vc2588
Acorn's VC2588 ARM1 prototype from 1985 was fabricated by VTI (VLSI)'s 3 um process.

Amiga OCS was fabricated in a 5 um process.

There could be production capacity with CSG's 1.5 um process.

Originally Posted by Promilus

I say ranger, he says it wasn't ready or tested. Reality check - Jay himself in interview admits it WAS READY AND TESTED before he left C= for good.

Amiga Range still has a 4096 color palette with 7 bitplanes display.

CSG can fabricate C65's 8-bit plane display capable VIC-III chip. [ Show youtube player ]

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

PSX's Psy-Q SDK is superior since it's focused on game development.


Psy-Q was an SDK created by SN Systems Limited and Psygnosis.

If the A1200 was a dedicated games console that didn't share 90% of its architecture with previous Amigas then this would be relevant. But then it wouldn't have a keyboard, mouse, floppy drive and hard drive, multitasking GUI OS etc. so you would absolutely need that (expensive) development system. And you would only be using it to develop games, not applications like Final Writer or IBrowse.

BTW Sony had their own development system based on MIPS R4000 which was much more expensive. Small-time developers could forget about their dreams of producing innovative PlayStation games.

The attraction of Psy-Q over the official Sony SDK was that mere mortals might be able to afford it. But how many did? Meanwhile any Amiga owner could grab a copy of Hisoft Devpac and Deluxe Paint, and be making hot Amiga games in their bedroom for peanuts. A good example of this is Another World:-

The polygons of Another World: Amiga 500

Since the A500 was the development machine, it is the original version built from 1989 to 1991 by then 21 years old Eric Chahi working alone in his bedroom.

Two reasons made the Amiga the perfect development machine. First, the GenLock allowed to super-impose a video camera output onto the computer own outputs which enabled rotoscoping. Second, and most importantly, the Amiga Agnus immensely facilitated polygons rendering.

Another World (video game)

In August 1989, Chahi was impressed by the flat-color animations that the Amiga version of Dragon's Lair had and thought that it would be possible to use vector outlines to create a similar effect using much less computer storage. After first attempting to write the graphical routines in C, he turned to assembly language... he found that he could run the code on the Amiga platform and achieve a frame rate of about 20 frames per second...

He was able to take advantage of the Amiga's genlock capabilities to create rotoscoped animations with the polygons, using video recordings of himself performing various actions... Chahi resorted to developing his own tool with a new programming language through GFA BASIC coupled with the game's engine in Devpac assembler, to control and animate the game...

Chahi acquired the rights to Another World's intellectual property from Delphine Software International after they closed down in July 2004. Magic Productions then offered to port the game to mobile phones, and it was ported with help from Cyril Cogordan. Chahi saw that the game's playability could be improved, so he used his old Amiga for reprogramming certain parts of the script and made the graphics' shading clearer in order to counter mobile phones' low resolutions.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Wrong. Commodore asked developers whether it should have more RAM or a cheaper price, and they went for cheaper price. Note that the 2MB DRAM in the A1200 cost Commodore $53, more than all the other chips combined.

The context for the 2MB Chip RAM upgrade is about 2D gaming. The "upgraded CD32" argument is about 2.5D and 3D.

Turrcian 2 AGA needs Fast RAM for sustained 256 colors 50 hz.

According to David John Pleasance's Commodore the Inside Story - The Untold Tale of a Computer Giant book, A1200 has a "healthy profit margin" for Commodore.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

It did make sense. Firstly the CD32 had to be cheap. Put FastRAM on it and it wouldn't be. Secondly it was part of the Amiga family, specifically the A1200. It was expected that many games would be designed to run on both, so they had to work without FastRAM. Thirdly, what real difference would it make? Compared to the previous Amiga 'games machine' (A500), the A1200/CD32 already had double the memory, more than twice the CPU power, 8 times more colors and 60% faster blitter. If that wasn't enough you were never going to be satisfied.

Amiga OCS was frozen in 1985, hence why A1200 is not enough.

Turrcian 2 AGA needs Fast RAM for sustained 256 colors 50 hz.

AGA's original object manipulator intent was the $20 DSP3210. Alice's Blitter is to service legacy Amiga OCS software.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Run a game like Dread on a stock A1200, and then with FastRAM. Does it feel like a 'super weapon' or just a bit faster?

Commodore didn't hire demo scene experienced programmers for their 1st party game studio team.

Officially, Commodore has no optimized Alice Blitter assist C2P software for the larger A1200 install base. Commodore's solution for Amiga's "packed pixels" problem is CD32's Akiko which locked out the larger install base A1200. Mainstream game studios couldn't be bothered with Amiga's packed pixel problem e.g. EA's uncompleted Magic Carpet AGA. Many fast 386DX with 3 to 4 MB 2.5/3D games weren't ported for the Amiga AGA.

Dread has Sega Mega Drive's line draw tricks which allowed Wolfenstein 3D Mega Drive port. Dread had optimized Blitter assist C2P that works on 4-bit planes.

Nintendo has strong 1st party game programmers to solve SNES's chicken vs egg problem. For 2.5D and 3D, Nintendo didn't avoid DSP and SuperFX add-ons methods.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

It wasn't whether Commodore could afford it, but where the retail price would land. It would make the CD32 significantly more expensive than an A1200, and more expensive than a Sega Mega Drive with Mega CD. It would be priced outside the market it was targeting.

According to David John Pleasance's Commodore the Inside Story - The Untold Tale of a Computer Giant book, CD32's profit margin is less than A1200.

CD32 has a lower asking retail price.

David Pleasance warns against CD32's 1993 release that would reduce the "healthy profit margin" of A1200's potential sales.

Commodore gave away the mid-priced "new 32-bit 2.5/3D gaming experience" segment to the gaming PC.

There are three paths for Commodore:
1. Hire demo scene experienced programmers as part of their 1st party games studio team. Figure out optimized Alice Blitter assist C2P software as part of the official SDK. The goal is to improve visual effects quality consistency across multiple Amiga games instead of "reinventing the wheel" R&D cycle.

2. Upgrade the object manipulator with $20 DSP3210. Similar to DSP-1/SuperFX addon tactics.

Nintendo executed both paths.

3. Counter mid-priced "new 32-bit 2.5/3D gaming experience" gaming PCs i.e. official 68EC020-25 or 68EC020-28 equipped A1200. Must counter rising AMD's 386DX-40 price disruptor.

Agnus has line draw and fill acceleration for the polygon line draw and polygon fill workload. This is used for Amiga's F-29 Retaliator.

The Amiga doesn't have 3DO's texture mapper and geometry matrix acceleration.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

If the A1200 was a dedicated games console that didn't share 90% of its architecture with previous Amigas then this would be relevant. But then it wouldn't have a keyboard, mouse, floppy drive and hard drive, multitasking GUI OS etc. so you would absolutely need that (expensive) development system. And you would only be using it to develop games, not applications like Final Writer or IBrowse.

PSX's game development wasn't expensive when it's PC-based.

Microsoft created its DirectX team during Windows 3.1's WinG development and the WinDoom port was the game-centric retargetable graphics exercise. Microsoft ported Doom again for DirectDraw and it released as Doom 95. Microsoft was already concerned about the Japanese dominance in the home gaming market.

Microsoft made sure Windows 95 is game retargetable graphics capable and Doom ports was the use case test.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

BTW Sony had their own development system based on MIPS R4000 which was much more expensive. Small-time developers could forget about their dreams of producing innovative PlayStation games.

Wrong. Sony is aware of the MIPS workstation's cost problem and Sony has addressed it. Sony's Psygnosis led the lower-cost PSX toolchain with mainstream European game developers jumping on the PSX bandwagon. Amiga's core European market was hollowed out by Nintendo and Sony.

Psy-Q Software Development Kit is PC-based i.e. a blue parallel dongle and a SCSI ISA interface (yellow) card for the comms link to the Playstation 1.

Psy-Q was originally designed for Windows 3.1, with Sony (Psygnosis) updating Psy-Q along the way to be more compatible with Windows 95 and 98.


Sony learns its game console craft from Nintendo and the failed Beta Max experience. Sony's Psygnosis released Psy-Q in 1993.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The attraction of Psy-Q over the official Sony SDK was that mere mortals might be able to afford it. But how many did? Meanwhile any Amiga owner could grab a copy of Hisoft Devpac and Deluxe Paint, and be making hot Amiga games in their bedroom for peanuts.

1. Amiga AGA's install base is small despite the Amiga platform being cost-friendly for bedroom game programmers.

PC had PSX game ports. One of my main reasons for the Pentium class gaming PC in 1996 is PSX game ports! You're out of touch.

2. Psy-Q Software Development Kit is PC-based i.e. a blue parallel dongle and a SCSI ISA interface (yellow) card for the comms link to the Playstation 1.

3. https://www.retroreversing.com/offic...nt-kit-(psyq)/
Psy-Q is the official PSX SDK.

4. Sony purchased Psygnosis on 21 May 1993 which is after the disastrous meeting with Commodore CEO.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220406.../the-observer/
Clipped From The Observer (UK), "Britain faces game drain."

Amiga platform's game ecosystem was effectively dismantled in Amiga's strongest market i.e. the UK.

http://www.bambi-amiga.co.uk/amigahi...ggebrecht.html
Lew Eggebrecht identified EA-backed 3DO as a threat, hence pushing for AT&T DSP upgrade for low-end Amigas, but Commodore ran out of money and time.

Lew Eggebrecht's business plan was to bring down SGI graphics for normal desktops i.e. NVIDIA/3DFX's business plan.
---------
Without PiStorm-Emu68, both my A500 and A1200 would be back in storage instead of participating as near-daily driver desktop computers. A1200 with TF1260 and PCMCIA WiFi wasn't enough for a usable Windows Remote Desktop. The recent Emu68's modern WiFi Pi WPA2 driver improved the RDP experience.

Low cost high compute power matters.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

Amiga Range still has a 4096 color palette with 7 bitplanes display.

Evidence for Ranger having 7 bitplanes and 128 colors is slim. According to Brian Bagnall in 'Commodore the Amiga Years',

Jay Miner had started his Ranger chipset in 1985 and by January 1987 it was largely complete... The chipset now added 1024x800... or 1024x1024... in monochrome... "These chips are completed and tested and only require a computer and memory to hold them together", Miner revealed at the time...

Jay Miner was frustrated that the price of VRAM had not fallen sufficiently by the time he had completed the Ranger chipset design. He tried to rationalize the chipset to Commodore's executives on the basis that they could throw in the memory at cost...

As noble as this sentiment sounded, it was also unrealistic... Companies that try to operate with slim profit margins usually find themselves going out of business.

In March, Miner handed off his chipset to the Westchester engineers to complete and fabricate. But as history shows, the Ranger chipset was never put into production by Commodore.

What Miner handed over to Westchester was a logic design verified in a simulator, not an actual chipset. Past experience shows that it would probably require several silicon iterations to get the bugs out.

Interestingly the ECS chipset that Westchester ended up producing does have high-scan rate at 640x480, both in monochrome and 4 colors using a palette trick. It also has 2MB ChipRAM like Ranger, 1024x1024 blits, and extra register bits suggesting the possible use of VRAM. This indicates that they might have cribbed features off Miner's Ranger design. Or perhaps ECS is the Ranger chipset in its final incarnation.

Another interesting thing is that one of the objections the Los Gatos team had to the A500 was that they didn't think the PLCC 'fat' Agnus would work because it had too much stuff integrated into it. This suggests that the Ranger chipset was less integrated. It may have had more custom chips, or more discrete logic like the original A1000 chipset did, which would make it even more expensive.

Unfortunately whatever it was that Miner handed over to Westchester has been lost. Dave Haynie says he never saw a circuit diagram or any hardware related to it. The only prototype we have of the Ranger computer has nothing resembling the Ranger chipset Miner spoke of.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

PSX's game development wasn't expensive when it's PC-based.

It is if you don't have a PC.

Sony is aware of the MIPS workstation's cost problem and Sony has addressed it.

More accurately, Psygnosis pitched their SDK to Sony as a cheaper alternative to theirs.

But if you had an Amiga you didn't need any of that. I was a CD32 developer and all I had was an A1200 with Hisoft Devpac and Deluxe Paint. I didn't need to spend ages swotting up on a new hardware platform because I already knew 90% of it, and I had an extensive library of code developed over several years.

Any delay in release of AGA titles was not due to lack of support from Commodore. The main reason was the same as for other platforms - it takes time to develop a good game regardless. Many developers were already working on A500 games and wouldn't start on new projects until they finished what they were working on.

The advantage of the A1200 over a radically different design was that while waiting for AGA titles to be released you could enjoy playing A500 games, often with smoother operation and other benefits. The hard drive was another good addition, making multi-disk games more enjoyable due to faster loading and no disk swapping. If you already had an A500 the A1200 could still be a good purchase, since it was cheap and most of your existing stuff could be used with it.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Any delay in release of AGA titles was not due to lack of support from Commodore. The main reason was the same as for other platforms - it takes time to develop a good game regardless.

Ridge Racer was released with the original PlayStation.

[dreadnought]

What, page 200 an no celebrations? You guys are no fun

Let's remedy that with a happy face.



So, yeah, there was a point where I thought this thread beyond ridiculous, but since then I learned to appreciate it a bit more. I like to talk about old machines, and if the only way to scratch that itch is to relive the same argument loop over and over and over, then so be it! Long may it live and here's to another 200 pages.

Now that's out of the way, let's get back to business

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Guess what titles the PlayStation had on release in 1994?

A IV Evolution: A Ressha de Ikou 4
A.IV. Evolution (Hatsubai Kinen Gentei Set)
Crime Crackers
Geom Cube
Kakinoki Sh?gi
Kikuni Masahiko Jirushi: Warau Fukei-san Pachi-Slot Hunter
King's Field
Jikky? Powerful Pro Yaky? '95
Mahjong Gok? Tenjiku
Mahjong Station: MAZIN
Motor Toon Grand Prix
Nekketsu Oyako
Parodius
Ridge Racer
Special Collection Vol. 1
Tama: Adventurous Ball in Giddy Labyrinth
Twin Goddesses
Twinbee Taisen Puzzle Drama

Some real killer games there - like '3D' Tetris, two Mahjong games, a 'puzzle drama' based on a 1985 arcade game, a collection of adventure games previously released in 1993 for the PC-98, a slot machine gambling game, a baseball simulation game previously released on the SNES, a couple of 2D shmups originally released in 1988 on MSX and 1990 on NES, a pretty poor looking dungeon game, an fps with Wolfenstein 3D style graphics, and a 2D fighting game.

Can we say 'shovelware'? At least it did have Ridge Racer, a car racing game that wowed me for about 3 minutes before I became bored with it.

I do enjoy your posts since they almost always offer something funny to comment on, but the real gems come when you try to talk about games. This one is no different. So let's skip over the fact these aren't really the launch games and check this extremely amusing "review"

- "two Mahjong games, a 'puzzle drama' based on a 1985 arcade game, a baseball simulation game previously released on the SNES, a slot machine gambling game" - so a bunch of genres which are hugely popular in Japan, Sony's native country and the first to launch PS at. The sheer insanity of it, what were they thinking?

-"a couple of 2D shmups originally released in 1988 on MSX and 1990 on NES, a collection of adventure games previously released in 1993 for the PC-98" - god forbid, re-releasing old popular games with new gfx? This would never pass on A1200/CD32.

-"and a 2D fighting game." - another genre totally hated in JP and worldwide

-"an fps with Wolfenstein 3D style graphics" - aaaaand another one

-Moto Toon Grand Prix - this didn't get a "review", but while it was indeed rushed and rather poor, Sony supported the devs, who made a brilliant sequel and after that Gran Turismo

-"a pretty poor looking dungeon game" - ie supremely popular RPG, which has spawned numerous sequels and eventually turned into Dark Souls franchise

But, ok, even if these games were really "shovelware" it wouldn't matter much, since on launch you only need one killer app. Just one. And Ridge Racer certainly was that one game, and did amuse millions of people for far longer than "three minutes". Same also goes for NA and EU launches, which conveniently went unmentioned and which had toshinden and Wipeout along Ridge Racer.

And that one killer app at launch is more than what A1200 & CD32 managed during their entire life spans.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

And that one killer app at launch is more than what A1200 & CD32 managed during their entire life spans.

Slam Tilt wasn't that bad...