also the Megadrive had lazy ports :)

[sokolovic]

I have sometimes the impression that we forgot here that we are the remains or a much broader population that didn't have any clue about 50/60hz frequencies, parallaxes, CPU or sprites counts. The only technical thing that most of peoples had was 8/16/32 bits.
Buying japanese imported games was a tiny fraction of the European market. A very tiny one.

[kremiso]

@dreadnought
on my crt it was something like this, raising the tv contrast at max

[ Show youtube player ]

[TCD]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

I have sometimes thé impression that we forgot here that we are the remains or a much broader population that didn't have any clue about 50/60hz frequencies, parallaxes, CPU or sprites counts. Thé only technical thing that most of peoples had was 8/16/32 bits.
Buying japanese imported games was a tiny fraction of the European market. A very tiny one.

I edited my last post. Imported games were widely reported/reviewed in European magazines in the 90s. Lots of mail order ads for imported games in those magazines too. Maybe you'll understand why I don't agree with your 'tiny fraction' assessment.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by kremiso

@dreadnought
on my crt it was something like this, raising the tv contrast at max

[ Show youtube player ]

Ok, I'm still not sure what is the problem here?

Originally Posted by TCD

I edited my last post. Imported games were widely reported/reviewed in European magazines in the 90s. Lots of mail order ads for imported games in those magazines too. Maybe you'll understand why I don't agree with your 'tiny fraction' assessment.

This is true, it;s enough to look at multi-platform mags from Europe to find plenty of "meanwhile in Japan" kinda features, and the ads were even in the Amiga-dedicated ones. Most of them sold so called SCART-Megadrives at nearly the same price as PAL ones. You could also rent or swap games, not just buy them.

Sure, imports were expensive and available for everyone but it doesn't mean people didn't know about them. I read everything about Amiga when I had Spectrum, everything about PC when I had Amiga in later years, and even when I had PC I used to go to arcades to check out the likes of Virtua Fighter 3. I'm pretty sure if I had MD I'd do the same.

I'm not quite sure what the argument here is anyway. If a kid wanted to compare X2 to something they could just look at Euro releases or walk into any arcade. But Xenon 2 was a big hit and people mostly bought it based on reviews, word of mouth etc...not some nerdy comparisons.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Most of them sold so called SCART-Megadrives at nearly the same price as PAL ones.

The adapters that required one PAL game and the imported game were quite cheap too. You wouldn't need any additional hardware (power or 50/60hz converters) to play the games on your PAL console.

[sokolovic]

I think you're overestimating the influence of those magazine on the mass market. There is a reason why most of them went broke in the mid 90's (and same for the shops).

You could find a pair a shops with imported games in some of the biggest cities of France (mostly Paris, Marseille or Lyon) but the vast majority of buyers just went to their local big supermarket to buy games.

The first game that was heavily imported and seeked around by peoples there is probably Street Fighter 2 on the SNES, at a price that was close to a NeoGeo game.

[Adropac2]

Xenon 2 is a game I've grown more fond of over the years. I'd imagine it's a little muddy looking on MD compared to how pretty it looks on both the ST and Amiga

[kremiso]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

I think you're overestimating the influence of those magazine on the mass market. There is a reason why most of them went broke in the mid 90's (and same for the shops).

You could find a pair a shops with imported games in some of the biggest cities of France (mostly Paris, Marseille or Lyon) but the vast majority of buyers just went to their local big supermarket to buy games.

The first game that was heavily imported and seeked around by peoples there is probably Street Fighter 2 on the SNES, at a price that was close to a NeoGeo game.

the jap import games situation here in Italy (at least in my zone) was even worse, at least in the Megadrive era;
after the SuperNintendo release def more inherent shops started to pop out

[TCD]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

I think you're overestimating the influence of those magazine on the mass market. There is a reason why most of them went broke in the mid 90's (and same for the shops).

I'm overestimating that more than 1% of people buying games read them? Well, I don't think so

Over here magazines that covered all systems were converted to PC only in the mid 90s. Parallel to that console only magazines emerged. Couldn't think of many major games magazines that 'broke' in the mid-90s.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by TCD

I'm overestimating that more than 1% of people buying games read them? Well, I don't think so

Over here magazines that covered all systems were converted to PC only in the mid 90s. Parallel to that console only magazines emerged. Couldn't think of many major games magazines that 'broke' in the mid-90s.

I fail to see where I've said that 99% of people buying games didn't read games magazine.
But I'm pretty sure that not everyone read them intensively (nor all of them) to the point of being aware of every japanese release or others insiders info. Plus it isn't because Musha was released in Japan and reviewed in Europe that you could instantly go to any shop and buy a copy here.

Do you seriously imagine a 10/11/12 years old kid buying imported games by mail order, sending checks or making distant payment order ? It was a niche market, mostly for people in big cities with some money and at a certain age. Certainly not the average console gamer of the early 90's.

I love to read old magazines by now and I'm often amazed by the number of information I've personally overlooked at that time. Probably because I was 12 years old at that time and didn't care (nor understand) at all about many article around technical things or deep stories on game making. I was mostly looking to previews, reviews and tips.

Tilt went broke in 1994. But you're right, I'm maybe a bit influenced by Amiga press. But most of biggest general French VG titles went broke around 2000.

[Megalomaniac]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

I have sometimes thé impression that we forgot here that we are the remains or a much broader population that didn't have any clue about 50/60hz frequencies, parallaxes, CPU or sprites counts. Thé only technical thing that most of peoples had was 8/16/32 bits.
Buying japanese imported games was a tiny fraction of the European market. A very tiny one.

This plus the "sending cheques through the mail" point probably sums it up. Buying imported games was a specialised niche concept, try explaining it to your non-technical parents that, on top of the console they just bought you, you need an expensive new TV and a £30-40 adaptor, and the games you buy in future will be in an alphabet (let alone language) you can't read. Even when the PAL conversion was botched, could most people tell the difference without seeing them side by side?

As for Xenon 2, I have to point out that on LemonAmiga it averages less than Hybris and Battle Squadron (as well as Silkworm, R-Type and Datastorm on the horizontal side) - all of which are older games. My honest opinion is that Hybris and Battle Squadron are better in almost every way - Xenon 2 has interesting enemies and a nice shop sequence, but that's about it. I find Xenon 2 slow, ugly, unfair and boring. Sadly those two are Amiga exclusives developed by unknown coders and imported by relatively small companies, whereas Xenon 2 had the Bitmap Brothers brand, celebrity musicians involved, a smug name and Robert Maxwell's marketing budget, so Amiga Xenon 2 probably outsold Hybris and Battle Squadron combined.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Adropac2

Xenon 2 is a game I've grown more fond of over the years. I'd imagine it's a little muddy looking on MD compared to how pretty it looks on both the ST and Amiga

I just played them one by one on a CRT. Yeah, MD version is a bit less colorful, but this is honestly on a level only people bickering on the forum in 2023 can consider important

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Do you seriously imagine a 10/11/12 years old kid buying imported games by mail order, sending checks or making distant payment order ?

You seem fixated on the idea that only this extremely narrow age demographic was buying games in the 90s. Let me assure you this is far from true, as anybody who has ever been to an arcade can attest (why else would I hide my money in a sock? )

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

As for Xenon 2, I have to point out that on LemonAmiga it averages less than Hybris and Battle Squadron (as well as Silkworm, R-Type and Datastorm on the horizontal side) - all of which are older games. My honest opinion is that Hybris and Battle Squadron are better in almost every way - Xenon 2 has interesting enemies and a nice shop sequence, but that's about it. I find Xenon 2 slow, ugly, unfair and boring.

And what exactly is your point? That some games were better but had less publicity and sales/popularity? This is what happens every year on every platform since time immemorial. But most of these "unfair" games aren't really that bad on their own, otherwise they really wouldn't do so well. Really bad games don't become smash hits. COD series is a good case in point here.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

You seem fixated on the idea that only this extremely narrow age demographic was buying games in the 90s. Let me assure you this is far from true, as anybody who has ever been to an arcade can attest (why else would I hide my money in a sock? )

Yep I'm pretty sure that by 1990/93 the vast majority of peoples playing VG on a console were kids and not grown up 40+ nerds with 30 years of VG experience behind them.
And this opinion seems conforted by the advertising politics of major VG publishers or console makers (or even dedicated console magazines of that time) and by the charts on the said machines.
Of course, by 1995/96, with the PlayStation in Europe, the same kids would have grown up a bit, and the market went bigger with more games aimed at a "mature" (mostly teenagers, young adults) audience.
I'm speaking for the console market, the computer one was obviously different.

[kremiso]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I just played them one by one on a CRT. Yeah, MD version is a bit less colorful, but this is honestly on a level only people bickering on the forum in 2023 can consider important

wow, well thanks to consider in this way other opinions

imo more than less colorful is like both red and green gradients were turned off, or just the blue one oversaturated

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

the vast majority of peoples

We went from "nobodies" to "99%" to "vast majority". Allright - that was pretty much the point all along

Originally Posted by kremiso

wow, well thanks to consider in this way other opinions
imo more than less colorful is like both red and green gradients were turned off, or just the blue one oversaturated

"The blue gradient in Xenon 2 is clearly oversaturated, so I will ignore all the mags and my mates, and buy something else instead" - said nobody back then, ever. It was a time when 8 bit arcade conversions were still topping the charts and believe me, they had a bit more lost in translation than colour saturation.

If you concentrated on the thing about missing levels you'd have much more of a case though.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

We went from "nobodies" to "99%" to "vast majority". Allright - that was pretty much the point all along

I won't argue for a mere percentage. Feel free to think that there was a significant amount of people in the early 90's following Japan releases and buying them at a full price in dedicated store to feed their consoles.

And Musha wasn't a very seeked game amont Megadrive users by that time.

[Adropac2]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I just played them one by one on a CRT. Yeah, MD version is a bit less colorful, but this is honestly on a level only people bickering on the forum in 2023 can consider important

.

the resolution as well is a little lower too I think?

[kremiso]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

...Xenon 2 has interesting enemies and a nice shop sequence, but that's about it...

ah, the shop
is indeed a good thing, but i didnt like too much the interruption also in the middle of each level (with double loading on Amiga)

maybe just at end of each stage would have been better, at least to me

[Retro-Nerd]

Huh? Sending checks via mail? In Germany we could drive to many shops that were selling import games, this all started at the end of the 80s.

Or you could call the shops directly, phone numbers were in games magazines all over the place. You got the packages via cash on delivery. Not really a problem, even for teenagers. I personally bought a lot of import games since 1989. Ordered some Amiga games via phone too. Mostly much cheaper than in normal malls. Around 1991/1992 video stores also started to rent import games. So, it was easy enough to get access here.

[kremiso]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

The Turrican MD port was really bad too. Battle Squadron could have been much much better.

i remember the infinite discussion with my cousin about Turrican back in the day

he had the Megadrive and bought also Turrican, cause all the previous good plays at my house

well, the best comment he said is that it was 'decent'

at Ballistic, maybe they wanted fast releases from the developers, i remember Onslaught quite different from the Amiga version