Biggest lost opportunities for the PCE

[RR1980]

I am not that familiar with the TG16's history was TG16 like "this close" from getting a MK port? what was the story there?

My guess is that NEC probably didn't anticipate the success of the PC Engine so they had the SGX in development to replace the PC Engine right from the get go but came time to release it 2 yrs later they were kinda caught in the middle since much resources already went into developing this thing they can't not release it but at the same time the pce was having huge success so they ended up doing what they did which was released it but abandoned it almost right the way. NEC would run into this situation once again when it came time to release the PCFX and that time they decided to delay it by a year which also ended up hurting them and ultimately ended NEC's role as a gaming hardware company.

[spenoza]

I'll disagree again here. The Valis series certainly has its low points (*cough* Valis II), but there is plenty of great action to be found in the rest of the games. Maybe super-high-speed runs through levels are a prerequisite for "good" action for you, but not me.

The biggest problem with the Valis series, and many of the other PCE platformers, is that the control feels stiff and finicky. In Mario games you know when you're at the edge of a platform, and as was mentioned earlier, Nintendo got the jumping nailed. In the Valis games I always felt like I was fighting my own character's movement and controls as much as I was the enemy. Valis exemplifies this problem, though it's by no means the only PCE game that suffers from it. Lots of NES games had this problem as well, but after a couple years devs seemed to wrap their heads around it and many companies, even smaller ones, were getting jumping, hit boxes, and platform edges mostly right. Meanwhile PCE devs weren't working with platformers so much.

[spenoza]

Regarding the SGX surviving long enough to be built into Duos...


Shit like this never works, and this would have been no exception. In many ways the SGX dying as bizarrely fast as it did (I'm sure it was effectively killed before it was even released) was a blessing.

If the SGX had taken off, then we would have been in a tricky situation. Were previous owners of PCE systems supposed to basically bin their old systems purchased just two years earlier? That would suck, especially considering the price of the SGX, and the CDROM2 (planed from the begining) combined. I'm pretty sure sales of PCE in that early period were some of the best the system ever saw too. It would have been suicidal to shit on that customer base.

That is certainly one possibility, but what about this other possibility... What if the CD-ROM attachment had included extra hardware capabilities, like the extra hardware in the SGX. Could the expansion port have allowed for this? What if the stock CD unit basically upgraded the system? Under those circumstances the only people who would have been left out would be people who don't buy a CD-ROM upgrade. That might have been a way around all this. Given how expensive the CD-ROM was upon release, adding in some extra power would likely not have had a major impact on the peripheral's price, assuming it's technically possible.

[FraGMarE]

Where do you even BEGIN to list the PCE/TG16's missed opportunities???  There are so many!  As was mentioned previously in this thread, the SuperGrafx in and of itself a was a HUGE missed opportunity.  Maybe not in Japan.  That thing was going to fail there, no matter what.  But if they'd have delayed the US release a few months and released the SGX here in the US with, say, 50+ quality PCE games, the western market (for the most part) wouldn't have even known any better that it was derived from inferior hardware.  Then you'd have a situation where the PCE was still getting plenty of support in Japan and the SGX would have been getting support in the west, similar to the Genesis (assuming NEC America would have marketed the thing properly, which is an awfully big assumption).

As for software, the list is basically endless... the PCE never got a Contra game (seriously, Konami?).  A proper conversion of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game would have filled the beat-em-up gap quite nicely.  As would a conversion of the Battle Toads arcade game (it even used one of the PCE's native res modes, 512x224).  Final Fight as a 8 or 12Mbit HuCard would have been pretty faithful, I'd imagine.  Mortal Kombat was originally planned as a PCE *exclusive* but NEC's higher-ups turned it down because they thought the fighting game genre was losing steam (just... lol).  A proper conversion by Irem of R-Type II would have been nice, and completely doable on the PCE.  Black Tiger would also have been dead simple on the PCE using the SAME engine Capcom used for Son Son II (seriously, go play them both back-to-back... they're essentially the same game).  And, yea, the platformer library on the PCE was seriously lacking.  Also, not that I'm a huge sports game fan or anything, but some greater support by EA would have done wonders for the western market.  They finally threw TTI a bone in '93 when they made Madden Duo Football or whatever it was (it was essentially a CD-ROM version of Madden '93), but by then it was too little, too late.

Then there are the quality Jp region games that never made it to the states.  That list is quite long as well.  Rondo of Blood, Gradius I/II, Salamander, Spriggan, Kaze Kiri, SFII' CE.  It goes on and on...

[grahf]

Spenoza, that would have definitely been the way to go, but I don't think they could have done it AND managed to get the CD-ROM2 to market as early as they did.

[RR1980]

wow MK as a PCE exclusive? That would have been a seriously game changer! They thought fighters were on their way out and yet they did all those neo geo fighter port? How wrong were they considering that the fighters genre only got bigger and bigger in the following decade!

[Tatsujin]

The PCE deserved at least three contras.

[RR1980]

The PCE deserved at least three contras.

yup "contra", "super contra" and "F yeah it's Contra again mofo"!

[soop]

BWT, jeez, get more CD games! You have three? No wonder you don't think its so great.

I can't think of anything else I want :/
Oh, I have 4, I forgot Neo Metal fantasy.  And I can't play 2 of them cos my arcade card still hasn't arrived yet.  Hit Japan is way faster that Game of Japan )

But yeah, any suggestions based on what I have already (in my sig) go for it.

[Tatsujin]

The PCE deserved at least three contras.

yup "contra", "super contra" and "F yeah it's Contra again mofo"!

I would say contra (arcade port), Contra Spirits (but in better) and Contra teh hardcore (with much better colors) 

[soop]

To be honest, there are some good points RE missed chances with regard to conversions, but personally, I guess the large number of PCE only titles is what draws me to the system more than anything.

[Arkhan Asylum]

at least the fragmentation of the CD/SCD base involved a single card.  Sure there were the Duos and SCD add on,  but really it was just a card separating CD and SCD users. 

Fragmentation of PCE/SGX is an entire system.  Sure it's backwards compatible, but it still costs money.  A lot of it. 

The SGX should have just been an add on.  Buy it if you want it.  Would have sold better as a click-on for the PCE, and would have cost less..

and screw mortal kombat.  Im glad that shitty game never showed up on our turbob.  Its retarded. We got SF2, we don't need herky jerk 90s fighters with stupid looking characters wearing halloween costumes.

If Rare would have devved for PCE, that would have added alot of nice games. But, werent they like not allowed during the NES days because of Nintendo's douchery?

Im curious why Konami bitched out on us.  They could've given us a lot of stuff. Was that more of Nintendo's doing?  lets kill them!

[soop]

I can't find it, but there was an interview with someone at Hudson on the final days of Hudson and where it went wrong.  I think it was on Sega16, but it may have been put up in the period wiped out by the hacking attack.

In the meantime, this is pretty interesting (albeit in PDF format).  It does not, however shed any light on the Konami situation (yet - haven't read part 2).
http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/upload/media/scans/HudsonRG_Part1.pdf


Ohh, this might be it (in a different format)
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1578/hudsons_revenge__looking_forward_.php

Nah, that's not it.  I think it was John Greiner interviewed though, but there's a ton of interviews out there with him.

[Tatsujin]

at least konami gave us the best akumajo dracula in the whole 8/16bit era, and that by a very far.
the konami shooters are also top ace ware, and a xexex was even planed. there really was only a contra thats missing from their side. uh oh and well, may be also a nice ganbare goemon j'n'r like the 2nd one on SFC. and sunset riders and mystic warriors and monster maulers and and and..

[Ceti Alpha]

I don't think any platform in history has ever been as fragmented as Android. It makes Windows look like the NES.

lol. That's a stretch.

[SignOfZeta]

Regarding the SGX surviving long enough to be built into Duos...


Shit like this never works, and this would have been no exception. In many ways the SGX dying as bizarrely fast as it did (I'm sure it was effectively killed before it was even released) was a blessing.

If the SGX had taken off, then we would have been in a tricky situation. Were previous owners of PCE systems supposed to basically bin their old systems purchased just two years earlier? That would suck, especially considering the price of the SGX, and the CDROM2 (planed from the begining) combined. I'm pretty sure sales of PCE in that early period were some of the best the system ever saw too. It would have been suicidal to shit on that customer base.

That is certainly one possibility, but what about this other possibility... What if the CD-ROM attachment had included extra hardware capabilities, like the extra hardware in the SGX. Could the expansion port have allowed for this? What if the stock CD unit basically upgraded the system? Under those circumstances the only people who would have been left out would be people who don't buy a CD-ROM upgrade. That might have been a way around all this. Given how expensive the CD-ROM was upon release, adding in some extra power would likely not have had a major impact on the peripheral's price, assuming it's technically possible.

Yeah, that would have been great, and that's what the MegaCD was, essentially. Unfortunately adding hardware as major as additional processors with direct memory access isn't possible on the PCE, let along economically feasible. The add-on was already $600 after all.

[SignOfZeta]

Where do you even BEGIN to list the PCE/TG16's missed opportunities???  There are so many!  As was mentioned previously in this thread, the SuperGrafx in and of itself a was a HUGE missed opportunity.  Maybe not in Japan.  That thing was going to fail there, no matter what.  But if they'd have delayed the US release a few months and released the SGX here in the US with, say, 50+ quality PCE games, the western market (for the most part) wouldn't have even known any better that it was derived from inferior hardware.  Then you'd have a situation where the PCE was still getting plenty of support in Japan and the SGX would have been getting support in the west, similar to the Genesis (assuming NEC America would have marketed the thing properly, which is an awfully big assumption).

With 50+ quality SGX games, yes, it very well could have been a success in America, but where do you get the 50+ million dollars to make such stuff? The weirdly huge success of the Genesis in the US happened with a library that was *heavily* US influenced. The EA sports stuff and MK with a lot of Sonic...and quite a few of the Sonic games were US developed.

Its not really a "missed opourtunity" if it could only happen in a parallel universe, at that point its just a fantasy.

Two things make this impossible 1) where the hell are those 50 games going to come from when even the Japanese only had 6, and they were not even slightly impressive 2) Americans are cheap-asses and the Japanese, especially back then, will buy almost any gadget you throw at them. If they didn't buy the SGX nobody would.

BTW, I am SO glad that never happened. I would have loved to see the TG16 succeed by being what it was, but having it transformed into a sleezy Football/Mortal Kombat machine. Oh lord. Good taste is a hurdle to be leaped, not limboed under!

[OldRover]

As far as I know, adding the SGX via the expansion port was in fact possible to do. Adding it via the hucard slot might not have been doable though. I think it was Charles who proposed a method of doing it via the expansion port... since the expansion port is apparently directly connected to all the relevant hardware. Of course, there's other things you could do with the hucard port... you could add additional RAM (doesn't Populous do this?), additional CPUs (we were talking on IRC awhile back about adding a V810), sound circuitry (though it'd be monaural), etc... the hucard port offers a lot of the capability of the expansion port, just not everything.

[SignOfZeta]

wow MK as a PCE exclusive? That would have been a seriously game changer! They thought fighters were on their way out and yet they did all those neo geo fighter port? How wrong were they considering that the fighters genre only got bigger and bigger in the following decade!

Well, at best the MK deal would have been a nice foot in the door, but there is a good chance that it wouldn't have made them any money. MK eventually came out on five systems, for Midway/Aklaim/whoever to have made the kind of money they wanted to, the exclusivity fee for NEC would have had to have been HUGE, probably a money loser in itself even if the system really did take off, and there is plenty of reason to suspect that it would't have. Players already would have had to buy a new system but also two new controllers to have enough buttons, but also a multitap. Most MK players are extremely casual and aren't going to drop that kind of bread.

Also, the Mk1 fad brought huge numbers to the Genesis platform for years on, but that was due to other factors. More people already had Genesis, the Genesis was already famous for having better sports games, the Genesis had Sonic. The MK thing really piggybacked on top of that...and it was fragile hype, even then. Only MK1 was better on Genesis, after that the SNES version had all the gory shit the arcade and Genesis versions had. It was too late by that point though and the far uglier Genesis versions stayed the standard because...I think MK fans can't read, maybe?

The hoard of SNK fighters that were eventually released in Japan weren't part of an expensive exclusivity deal. Also, and this isn't mentioned, they were Japanese games. No circa 1992 Japanese executive would have made that MK deal if even it wasn't fiscal suicide. MK doesn't sell in Japan. Its oiled up white trash muscle men ripping each others intensities out. Its (barely) interactive snuff porn, as far removed from Fatal Fury as it from Faces of Death: The Game.

[Arkhan Asylum]

The supergrafx could be added via an expansion port doodad clicker onner... it would just be a video add on for the most part.

And anyway, you could add a new CPU via expansion slot anyways.  Check out the SuperCPU for C64.

Thing shoves into the back of that piece of crap, making it a faster piece of crap!

[FraGMarE]

Where do you even BEGIN to list the PCE/TG16's missed opportunities???  There are so many!  As was mentioned previously in this thread, the SuperGrafx in and of itself a was a HUGE missed opportunity.  Maybe not in Japan.  That thing was going to fail there, no matter what.  But if they'd have delayed the US release a few months and released the SGX here in the US with, say, 50+ quality PCE games, the western market (for the most part) wouldn't have even known any better that it was derived from inferior hardware.  Then you'd have a situation where the PCE was still getting plenty of support in Japan and the SGX would have been getting support in the west, similar to the Genesis (assuming NEC America would have marketed the thing properly, which is an awfully big assumption).

With 50+ quality SGX games, yes, it very well could have been a success in America, but where do you get the 50+ million dollars to make such stuff? The weirdly huge success of the Genesis in the US happened with a library that was *heavily* US influenced. The EA sports stuff and MK with a lot of Sonic...and quite a few of the Sonic games were US developed.

Its not really a "missed opourtunity" if it could only happen in a parallel universe, at that point its just a fantasy.

Two things make this impossible 1) where the hell are those 50 games going to come from when even the Japanese only had 6, and they were not even slightly impressive 2) Americans are cheap-asses and the Japanese, especially back then, will buy almost any gadget you throw at them. If they didn't buy the SGX nobody would.

BTW, I am SO glad that never happened. I would have loved to see the TG16 succeed by being what it was, but having it transformed into a sleezy Football/Mortal Kombat machine. Oh lord. Good taste is a hurdle to be leaped, not limboed under!

I wasn't talking about 50+ newly developed SGX games.  I was talking about releasing the SGX in the US with 50+ ALREADY EXISTING PCE games, at launch.  The average US consumer, at the time, wouldn't have known any different that those games were developed in Japan for a slightly inferior system.  All people would have known here is that a system was launching with 50 or even 100 killer games, right out of the gate, and they meant business.  Oh, and BTW, i'm not talking about the ubiquitous bullshit software that trickled into the US market for the first year.  Think about all the Jp HuCards that were released by 1990 that you'd rate at 7+ out of 10.  Consider ALL those games being available at launch in the US.  Now THAT'S a strong system launch.

As for the system being an MK/sports machine, you're missing my point.  If games like MK and Madden had reached the US market, it would have contributed GREATLY to the success of the system in the west, and you'd have seen much better third party support for the system (because it would have been far more popular and had a larger user base).  Perhaps, then you'd have seen more things Contra, Final Fight, Rocket Knight, Gunstar Heroes, etc., not to mention English translations of all the games that never reached US shores, but should have (Dracula X, Gradius, Gradius II, Salamander, SF2' CE...)

[ccovell]

My guess is that NEC probably didn't anticipate the success of the PC Engine so they had the SGX in development to replace the PC Engine right from the get go but came time to release it 2 yrs later they were kinda caught in the middle since much resources already went into developing this thing...

The SGX was announced as a cynical way to defuse the pressure on the PCE by the upcoming Super Famicom, and newly-released Mega Drive.  It was a rush job in reaction to these newer, superior systems that had 2 background planes and other hyped features.  It looks like NEC made Hudson slap together an update as fast as possible with little regard to advancing the technology, really.  The SGX is so similar technically to the PCE that it didn't take many resources at all to design the thing.  Now the Power Console attachment, that's another story...

Just like systems such as the Apple III (and 32X), the SGX was "designed" by corporate.

[awack]

As people have suggested, the biggest lost opportunity was not having an over hyped, crap game, like MK or DKC.

I agree with fragmare..more of these games(and sports) would have meant more of the less popular but better games. I'm personally glad that didn't happen, it might have meant hundreds of sports games and generic platformers, at the cost of being the best system for shooters....and as turns out,  shmups hold up a hell of allot better than most platformers and all sports titles.

[Arkhan Asylum]

If we would've gotten mortal kombat and EA sports games, the system would have been way more popular in the US. 

The average Americunt wanted to play shitty sports games and moronic fighters, apparently.

[spenoza]

Spenoza, that would have definitely been the way to go, but I don't think they could have done it AND managed to get the CD-ROM2 to market as early as they did.

Well, the CD-ROM attachment beat the SGX to market by a year or so... I'm not sure the CD-ROM would have suffered much by a delay of a year, given that, with few exceptions, the earliest CD-ROM games were less than stunning in every department except audio.

Given the SGX was possibly a very quick project, they might not even have known at the time the CD-ROM was released that the SGX was anywhere in the cards. Then again, if the stand-alone SGX early concept had been scrapped in favor of a CD-based SGX upgrade unit, it might have been easier for owners to swallow. I would also gather that with the rapid popularization of CD technology at the time that there would have been enough manufacturing process, technology, and part cost reductions in the intervening year since the CD-ROM addon's initial release that the SGX technology could have been rolled in without increasing the cost of the attachment.

[Arkhan Asylum]

I think the SGX didn't offer enough to encourage development when you have massive CDs to throw games on.  I mean, Cosmic Fantasy 3, cmon.

[spenoza]

I think the SGX didn't offer enough to encourage development when you have massive CDs to throw games on.  I mean, Cosmic Fantasy 3, cmon.

Ah, but what if you could have both? Seriously! The limited CD RAM would still have been a limitation, but having more VRAM and main RAM available could have been a very good thing.

[OldMan]

having more VRAM and main RAM availablecould would have been a very good thing.

Yeah, with more VRAM, we could load a bigger BAT and more graphics to boot. Larger screen, better animation on larger characters. <sigh> More main memory would allow tracking more objects, and probably better AI for objects.
What could have been......

[TurboXray]

Missed opportunities....

 There are a ton, hardware wise. We know from articles and interviews that the PC-Engine itself was always destined for more than what it was released as. The PCE by itself was nick named the 'core' system. The CD addon was in development and show cased even before the system was officially released. But onto specifics.

 - Lack of adequate core ram. More than just speculation, it's believed that the PCE original was developed with 32k of ram in mind, but only shipped with 8k. The upper 24k is just the 8k mirrored, not open bus. Fittingly, the SGX actually populates this mirrored ram with the additional 24k to make the original 32k ram. 8k of ram is limiting. It limits the type of compression schemes you can use. It limits caching decompressed data for later parts of levels (instead of doing it real time).

 - The cut back of vram to 64k. The VDC has full access to 128k of vram. The arcade Bloody Wolf which is basically just a PCE without a VCE, has that full 128k. It has all the player and enemy frames loaded in. Having larger vram space also means you can use better compression schemes and cache the frames into vram (like you would normal ram). I would have put more emphasis on this than regular system ram. Especially when you consider the CD addon original only gave 64k of work ram (simulated cart rom).

 - The lack of any second BG layer. Scrollable or fixed overlay/underlay. The PCE is setup to have a digital pixel bus to another device. That type of setup is used in quite a bit of arcades system, to mix different layers of different video chips. In the context of the PCE, the VCE is almost a waste. Bloody Wolf gets by just fine without it. It makes me wonder if something else was planned but cut. Maybe the SGX was closer to the original PCE design, but was cut down due to costs.

 - Audio. It's not surprise to me that the stock audio isn't miles ahead of the NES or even home computers at the time. The CD addon was more than likely to be their key marketing advantage. The difference of chips tunes like the PCE has, to that of CDDA audio - only strengthens the CD addon's value. There are upgrades that can be done via cart (mono input being one of them), but also a higher res timer. You can use the scanline interrupt (all 262 lines) to make 16khz audio, but it's rather expensive. An external timer that you resync on vblank INT would be perfect. It could even digitally mix channels for you and output them on two 5bit channels (10bit output), etc. But of course, hucards were replaced with dominant CD format fairly earlier on. The real mist opportunity is on CD games. You have 6 channels to use at once to make some really unique and great sound FX, yet more settled back on generic/typical PSG-ish tiny type SFX.

 - CD addon memory. The original CD addon memory was DRAM. DRAM is/was much less expensive than SRAM. Yet they only included a measly 64k. With only 64k of vram, 64k of simulated cart space is pathetic. They should have gone at least with 128k. At least that. It ended up costing them more in the long run because the there is no /RDY for DRAM interface on the cart port (on the expansion bus), so the 192k upgrade ram on the SCD card is SRAM. Much more expensive than DRAM. They should have started out with 192k or 256k of DRAM to begin with. I mean, considering the cost of everything else in the CD addon base ( the MCU, the cd drive logic, the ADPCM IC + ADPCM ram) - it would have been relatively low.

 - VDC. The VDC in the PCE (basically THEE video chip) spends quite a bit of time doing nothing during active display. IIRC, it spends have the scanline doing nothing. It gives all those slots to the CPU. For an engineering standpoint, that's fairly wasteful. There's totally enough time to actually fetch and build another BG layer there. But more important than that, is how amazing fast the VDC fetches all the sprite pixels. It does it in the short amount of time of hblank. No other system does that. Other other systems from that era use the whole scanline to parse and fetch the sprite pixel data for the next line. Not the VDC, does it all in hblank. But here's the kicker... there's only 64words of memory for sprite line buffer. That's 256 4bit sprite pixels. The VDC is fast enough to fetch much more than that, and it tries - but there's no more space to store them so they get dropped. Considering they chose not to have a second BG layer or static under/overlay window, they should have AT LEAST increased this to double the size. They had to have known that developers were going to fake BG overlay parts with sprites. Making sprites all the more important. Plus, that means the sprites to scanline ratio with also scale with the increase resolutions (mid res, high res). But because of this limited buffer, it doesn't. That's more said than any missing BG layer. Such power wasted and crippled by a small internal buffer. To me, that's the single best mist opportunity of the system design.

 - Yes, the SGX could have been made an addon. But not as it is. The extra 24k of ram sits where it's normally mirrored on the PCE. If you try to make ram there either via cart or expansion bus, you'll get a bus conflict. Just won't work. But everything else, yes. But there's a simple solution for SGX software to see if it's running on the main console or as an addon. It tests the mirror ram, if present then it used alternate bank mapped ram. Simple as that. I came up with this idea because the CD system card does just this. There's a reserved bank number in the last few bytes before the vector address of the system card rom. CD software take this value and use it as the starting bank for CD ram. Oddly enough, Gate of Thunder actually tries to change this byte in rom. From what Charles MacDonald told me of the CD dev card, system rom and ram are in different places - so this starting bank number was put there for a reason. GOT have some left over dev card routine to change it, but since it's rom it doesn't change. Anyway, the very same method could have been used to play SGX games on the main SGX system or the addon SGX upgrade.

 - CD addon. The CD addon was in development when the PCE was too. Though the PCE was release first (and a year apart IIRC). The initial faults of the PCE should have been clear in the first few months. The CD addon could have addressed some of these. Adding a second VDC to the CD addon is VERY doable. It doesn't even have to be as extravagant as the SGX. The original VCE output would be ignored and a new VCE inside the CD addon could have upgraded the RGB resolution to 12bit too. Or some other scheme ( a 10th and 11th bit for half intensity and double intensity in the RGB entry), etc turned on by a special reg otherwise left disabled for compatibility reasons.

 Adding the video upgrades, even if less than what I suggested (maybe just a static overlay/underlay 8bit image and a new VCE palette expansion) - would have made the CD addon stand out even more. And when the Duo was released, it would no problem matching the level of the SFC and MD hardware wise.

 Sega fucked up. They didn't have even half what the PCE had for an expansion bus. Yet they tried everything they could to have the MegaCD more advanced. It was... no it IS hackish. If you even dev'd on the SegaCD then you know exactly how hackish it is. The PCE had all the right pins and access lines needed to make a real hardware addon.... and they squandered that opportunity. They squandered the opportunity to make the CD addon and incredible upgrade that it could have been, not just some addon with a few frills here and there. 

[soop]

Reading that is just incredible, but it kind of makes me sad.  I need you to go back in time

[Arkhan Asylum]

The PCE's PSG is miles ahead of the other chips of the time.  Save FM and SID, but those are two very different concepts. 

I rather enjoy stereo panning on 6 channels, with 32 byte waveforms and sampleable nonsense.

Beats the piss out of the NES, or the MSX, Spectrum, Coleco, Intellivision, all the Atari's, the Master System.... the Atari ST....

it just kicks ass.


I'm glad they never got rid of it all the way through the PC-FX basically.  It's a unique and very fitting sound chip for the era. 


They should have just released a GrafxBooster

thats what it should have been called.

[TurboXray]

the MSX, Spectrum, Coleco, Intellivision, all the Atari's, the Master System.... the Atari ST....

Those sound chips are basic toy chips IMO. My comment about the chip is relative to the NEC PC line (being the most popular in Japan and being of the same developer... NEC). All FM chips. Even the lowest grade ones too. The PCE chip lacks any form of timbre control on a single channel. You have to pair channels just to try and emulate the effect. That's one of the reasons why you still see comments to this day, that PCE chip music sounds like NES-ish stuff. Yeah, it's much more capable than the NES overall. But it wouldn't have hurt them to make it an even 8 channels. Making channel pairing more viable option as single pseudo channels. The lack of timbre control like real music synths or even low grade FM chips, sets the PCE chip into lower category. Or hell, something even more simpler than that. Something so simple, it makes me want to punch the PCE audio developer in the face. A simple read back of the waveform pointer position of the fucking selected channel. "I mean, come on!" (arrested development reference). That alone would have made the PCE audio chip into a real wavetable synth (no, not sample based synth like the SNES/MOD/ETC). That one simple little feature. Bloody Wolf developer said "fuck it, were gonna do it anyway", and tried to do it with the trumpet instrument - but without the knowledge of the waveform pointer it comes off as course and click-y (for obvious reasons).

 As for the PCFX, that's the most moronic thing they could have ever done. Why the hell would they do that? A 1994 system (might as well be 1995) with an audio chip from 1987??? WTF were they thinking? It should have at least had an 8 channel sample based DSP and an 8 channel Yamaha 2151 (standard stuff for that era). It might be cool or unique now, but BITD it was fucking laughable. Of course, there are a lot of things about the PCFX design that just boggle the mind. IF it was released AS IS in late 1992... then maybe it would have been appropriate (video and audio specs). But 1995 is a joke. To me, the PCFX is a SuperGrafx 2.0.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Oh.  Well yeah of course its dwarfed by the PC-88/98 line.  When you have a computer that has plenty of room to expand, its real easy to toss in a pretty powerful synthcard.  FWIW, the original FM card in those things blew pretty bad though.  Its like 3 channels of FM only. and 3 SSG.  So, its pretty bleh.  Since it is a computer though... lots of stuff was able to come out and upgrade that into the sounds the thing is really known for.   Doing this with the PCE would have either made it cost more, be larger, who knows.  I'm glad they picked what they picked.  We've got enough fuckin FM crap out there.  The PCE is pretty damn unique in sound land, mimicked only by the SCC, and the NES w/ add ons.    And neither of those do it as good.

Some of the old PC-88 games have some pretty shit music. 

I think the PCFX's sound choice is a nice acquired taste.  You have to remember, there is CD audio.  With CD Audio, you can dwarf the entire PC-88/98 line.  You can record just about anything.  45 FM synths playing in tandem recorded in a studio if you want.  Suck on that, JAST!

They probably left the good ol' chirpy chip in there as a throwback.  "Yeah we got badass CD audio, but we still have your nostalgic sounds too".

I like the music it pumps out for Yuna.  It sounds really cool.

Thats the beauty of CD though... I used a SID for Insanity's music... ;) 

[ccovell]

The PCE is pretty damn unique in sound land, mimicked only by the SCC, and the NES w/ add ons.    And neither of those do it as good.

The SCC might be mono and only 5 channels, but it's much deeper and richer than the PCE's sound.  8-bit samples vs 4-bit samples does make a difference.

I agree that the PCE's PSG is a bit simpler and less ambitious than FM chips, but it still has a good sound to it.  Also, Hudson did the development of the whole PCE core chipset, so NEC wouldn't have had any say (or relevance w/r/t their line of PCs) until after Hudson started shopping around for manufacturers.

[FraGMarE]

On this same topic, a small processor chip in the 1-2 MHz range for handling the PSG would have been nice.  As it stands, the Hu6280 CPU handles the PSG sound, and it eats up 5-10% of processing time that could be freed up for game code.  Not a huge deal, but still would have been nice.

[Arkhan Asylum]

The PCE is pretty damn unique in sound land, mimicked only by the SCC, and the NES w/ add ons.    And neither of those do it as good.

The SCC might be mono and only 5 channels, but it's much deeper and richer than the PCE's sound.  8-bit samples vs 4-bit samples does make a difference.

PCE is 5-bits?

The SCC might be deeper/richer (usually the case with Konami games, not always the case with independent use), but not having stereo panning really does suck.  Especially when you hear alot of the stereo stuff on the PCE, like Dungeon Explorer. 

Plus the drums are generally done with the regular MSX PSG, which is better or worse, depending how you look at it, and whos doing the drums.

All the MSX people I've talked to really envy the per channel panning. 

[spenoza]

Sega fucked up. They didn't have even half what the PCE had for an expansion bus. Yet they tried everything they could to have the MegaCD more advanced. It was... no it IS hackish. If you even dev'd on the SegaCD then you know exactly how hackish it is. The PCE had all the right pins and access lines needed to make a real hardware addon.... and they squandered that opportunity. They squandered the opportunity to make the CD addon and incredible upgrade that it could have been, not just some addon with a few frills here and there. 

This is the story of every piece of Sega hardware after the Genesis up until the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was a hardware jewel, but the Saturn, 2D beast that it was, was a real hack-job.

I wonder if all these hardware possibilities were part of Hudson design works, or if they were due to NEC's involvement, or if NEC's involvement prevented them from pursuing those avenues. You wouldn't want the PCE, as a CD unit, begin to usurp PC-88 and, later, PC-98 sales. The CD-ROM was computer-bound...

[Arkhan Asylum]

Wasnt the PCE eventually intended to become a fully functional computer setup?

Maybe NEC helped put the brakes on that.

I think back then, they also planned for things, and didn't plan for others...... because this was all a new frontier back then. 

Hindsight is always 20/20.  A lot could've been done differently.  They could have done video addons, sound addons, all kinds of crap that we see plain as day right now...

Back then though, everyones favorite retro sound preferences weren't retro yet.  They were still becoming preferences.  The preferred format wasn't decided on (until the Playstation came and went "Yep, welcome to CDs. If you don't follow suit, you suck.  You hear that Nintendo? You suck.").

Lots of things were still experimental.

screw the missed opportunities anyway.  PCE was king back then, and it still is.

[TurboXray]

The SCC might be mono and only 5 channels, but it's much deeper and richer than the PCE's sound.  8-bit samples vs 4-bit samples does make a difference.

If the waveforms are short, 8bit depth does nothing for it. And then take that into the analog output world (because sample output isn't stair cased like when you look at it digitally), it means even less. The sample lengths for these DDS samples are way too short for the different of 8bit to 5bit to mean much of anything. If you don't believe me, try it yourself in an XM tracker. Make a 32sample 8bit wave and make an identical one in 5bit steps (padded to 8bit though). As it is, you can't even use all 5bit value range resolution for a complete sine wave in just 32 samples. If anything makes the MSX with SCC more rich, it would be the inclusion of the original on board MSX sound chip in conjunction with SCC chip.

I agree that the PCE's PSG is a bit simpler and less ambitious than FM chips, but it still has a good sound to it.  Also, Hudson did the development of the whole PCE core chipset, so NEC wouldn't have had any say (or relevance w/r/t their line of PCs) until after Hudson started shopping around for manufacturers.

The over all design is good, IMO. But since it lacks any timbre control per intra-note (you can do it per note level itself though), it really holds it back. Early 70's synths that weren't FM used lots of channels to create instruments sound models, but to also control the timbre of a instrument sound. For the PCE's audio design, it's clearly lacking in the number of channels. By the time the PCE was out, audio chips in game systems were getting more serious (and arcades too). Famicom really stepped up the bar. PCE audio, if nothing changed in design, should have been eight to ten channels, really. Even if some higher channels had to share the same sample buffers as lower channels to cut cost. But then again, if NEC really wanted to 'fix' the issue, the mono audio in line is right there on the cart port. Famicom had a ton of audio upgrades via cart. So it's definitely not unreasonable that PCE wouldn't have gotten them either. But I think it goes back to the CD rom. The difference from chip audio to CDDA is drastic back then (an obvious selling point). If the CD addon had completely flopped, then I'm pretty sure we would have seen some audio upgrades on hucards.

I wonder if all these hardware possibilities were part of Hudson design works, or if they were due to NEC's involvement, or if NEC's involvement prevented them from pursuing those avenues. You wouldn't want the PCE, as a CD unit, begin to usurp PC-88 and, later, PC-98 sales. The CD-ROM was computer-bound...

Think of it this way. The PCE wasn't an open development system like the NEC PCs. It required a license (which is where NEC made money on each title/copy sold) and a special dev unit for it. If it was anything like the US, NEC wasn't receiving any licensing fees for game softs created on the PC series. And while the NEC PCs were very popular, I doubt even a 1/4 of the sales were strictly from gamers wanting to play PC games. I think that was more of an added side bonus for kids that got a PC. NEC had more to gain and little if anything to loose by making the PCE game system more powerful than the PC line for gaming. But then again, I didn't grown up in Japan and all of that is based on my personal experience with PC's here in the US BITD.

[PukeSter]

I know this is kind of late, but anyway, here is my list of missed oppurtunities

1. More Capcom and Konami games, a Megaman game and a Contra would have been cool.
2. Namco CDs. ALL of Namco's games were on Hucard. Some ports were fantastic(Galaga 88, Genpei Toumaden), but others were awful(Youkai Douchuuki, WONDER Momo). Splatterhouse had none of the gory backround details from the arcade, and could have been much better on CD format.
3. Supergrafx-no brainer. Come on, 2 out of the 5 games were Capcom games! We could have had some major Capcom support!
4. Direct Toaplan support, they kept developing for the Megadrive
5. Using Nintendo's policy to steal major companies(until it was illegal) before Nintendo did
6. A port of R-Type II

[Arkhan Asylum]

How did I miss this gold mine.

If the waveforms are short, 8bit depth does nothing for it.
 

You obviously haven't listened to the MSX using an SCC very much.  You can hear much, much, much richer sound.  What it lacks is ambience because there is no panning.  The sound is not atmospheric, but it sure is bright.  PCE is a little thinner/weaker, but has so much ambience going on that it more than makes up for it.  The sampling works better on the PCE too. 
 
 You won't hear Soldier Blade style drums on the MSX with an SCC.  You also will never achieve the eerie atmosphere that Dungeon Explorer gets from the music.
 
 

And then take that into the analog output world (because sample output isn't stair cased like when you look at it digitally), it means even
 less.
 

Context is goooooood. =3
 
 

The sample lengths for these DDS samples are way too short for the different of 8bit to 5bit to mean much of anything. If you don't believe me, try it yourself in an XM tracker. Make a 32sample 8bit wave and make an identical one in 5bit steps (padded to 8bit though).
 

I don't believe you, because this is incorrect.  It takes some intimate understanding and experience with the SCC and it's varied uses to realize what 3 bits can do for you.
 
 Or, it requires ears:

MSX with the SCC

PCE
 
 Notice how the PCE one is more ambient, the drums are punchy samples, but the sounds themselves are a bit weaksauce when compared to the MSX one that is VERY RICH AND BRIGHT.
 
 3 bits.  Listen to that.
 
 

As it is, you can't even use all 5bit value range resolution for a complete sine wave in just 32 samples.
 

Can you clarify? Or at least make this sentence correct so I can try to figure out what you mean.
 

If anything makes the MSX with SCC more rich, it would be the inclusion of the original on board MSX sound chip in conjunction with SCC chip.

Along with FM, it makes one of the richest chip-based sound experiences anyone will ever hear on an 8 bit machine.

The over all design is good, IMO. But since it lacks any timbre control per intra-note (you can do it per note level itself though), it really holds it back.
 

So use FM and slam stuff into it to change the timbre.  I don't see how this is really grounds for being held back though.  Plus you can change waveforms so fast it doesnt even matter. Just use shorter notes, blend together and swap waves as you go.  It's a bit of effort, but hey, welcome to sound chips as opposed to real instruments.  Take them for what they are instead of holding them to other standards.  You don't hear people complaining that they wish their kazoo was a trumpet, do you?  "Man my kazoo is really held back because it doesn't have 3 valves and a mouth piece!"
 
 

Early 70's synths that weren't FM used lots of channels to create instruments sound models, but to also control the timbre of a instrument sound.

What? Do you mean additive synthesis? Why is this even worth mentioning? 

For the PCE's audio design, it's clearly lacking in the number of channels. By the time the PCE was out, audio chips in game systems were getting more serious (and arcades too).
 

6 channels is lacking in 1987?  lolgtfo.  That's more than the NES, and the same as the Genesis which wasn't even out yet.  More than the Konami SCC even.  How is 6 channels lacking?  You're high.
 
 

Famicom really stepped up the bar. PCE audio, if nothing changed in design, should have been eight to ten channels, really.
 

Does that mean the Genesis should have been 12-14 channels, really?  MSX-MUSIC had 9 channels of FM in 1987. 
 
 6 channels is more than the NES, and the SCC.  I think the PCE is just fine.  Look what people do with just 3 channels on other machines. 
 
 \o/ Thanks for reviving this post, new guy. 

[Digi.k]

I know this is kind of late, but anyway, here is my list of missed oppurtunities

1. More Capcom and Konami games
2. Namco CDs. ALL of Namco's games were on Hucard. Some ports were fantastic(Galaga 88, Genpei Toumaden), but others were awful(Youkai Douchuuki, WONDER Momo). Splatterhouse had none of the gory backround details from the arcade, and could have been much better on CD format.

If only Konami had stepped in earlier.. I would love some of those MSX-2 games to have appeared on the pc-engine... Space Mambo for pce ?? HELL YEAH!

and a port of the orginal MSX parodius... ;_;

[nectarsis]

Some ports were fantastic(Galaga 88, Genpei Toumaden), but others were awful(Youkai Douchuuki, WONDER Momo).

Genpei Toumaden...fantastic LOL

[Digi.k]

Some ports were fantastic(Galaga 88, Genpei Toumaden), but others were awful(Youkai Douchuuki, WONDER Momo).

Genpei Toumaden...fantastic LOL

it's almost arcade perfect !!!  I don't have mame and the roms anymore to prove it but it is  ;_;

[RegalSin]

Everything else was fine on the PCE.

1. They made the DUO ( including Super Grafx ) systems, instead of focusing on the original design. The original design could have been intergrated with the NEC series. It was perfect.

2.The PCFX was reasonable and could have and should have been the PC98.

3. Hudson Soft could have used the card type and challenge USB, and Firewire. Ever seen cable boxes with the slot card, parking meeters, and wash rooms dispencers? Swing and a miss hudson.

[nectarsis]

Some ports were fantastic(Galaga 88, Genpei Toumaden), but others were awful(Youkai Douchuuki, WONDER Momo).

Genpei Toumaden...fantastic LOL

it's almost arcade perfect !!!  I don't have mame and the roms anymore to prove it but it is  ;_;

A POS that's arcade perfect is STILL a POS lol

[spenoza]

The over all design is good, IMO. But since it lacks any timbre control per intra-note (you can do it per note level itself though), it really holds it back.
 

So use FM and slam stuff into it to change the timbre.  I don't see how this is really grounds for being held back though.  Plus you can change waveforms so fast it doesnt even matter. Just use shorter notes, blend together and swap waves as you go.  It's a bit of effort, but hey, welcome to sound chips as opposed to real instruments.  Take them for what they are instead of holding them to other standards.  You don't hear people complaining that they wish their kazoo was a trumpet, do you?  "Man my kazoo is really held back because it doesn't have 3 valves and a mouth piece!"

Good point. If you're determined to use a kazoo, use it as a kazoo. However, I doubt anyone would call a kazoo a superior instrument. The PCE sound chip does have a lot of flaws that require working around, and limit those who lack the time or talent to really push the chip. Truth told, there are many times I've thought to myself "Why didn't the PCE do anything like that?" when listening to NES soundtracks.

For the PCE's audio design, it's clearly lacking in the number of channels. By the time the PCE was out, audio chips in game systems were getting more serious (and arcades too).
 

6 channels is lacking in 1987?  lolgtfo.  That's more than the NES, and the same as the Genesis which wasn't even out yet.  More than the Konami SCC even.  How is 6 channels lacking?  You're high.

The Genesis has 10 sound channels in total. It has the same 4 the Master System had and 6 new channels. The PCE was a little low on sound channels. It probably should have had 8. I'm not surprised it only had 6 considering Hudson was designing it to compete with the NES, but if Hudson had been more forward-looking, 8 channels and perhaps a discrete audio controller, instead of bundling the circuitry in with the CPU, would have been a more logical design. The design of the PCE seems like NES mimicry in so many ways. Instead, they should have been looking at developments in arcade board design. That was part of Sega's success with the Genny. Then again, Sega had arcade hardware and software experience, and Hudson really didn't.
 

Famicom really stepped up the bar. PCE audio, if nothing changed in design, should have been eight to ten channels, really.
 

Does that mean the Genesis should have been 12-14 channels, really?  MSX-MUSIC had 9 channels of FM in 1987. 
 
 6 channels is more than the NES, and the SCC.  I think the PCE is just fine.  Look what people do with just 3 channels on other machines. 

I think 10 was enough for the MD. The MD had some excellent soundtracks. The sound effects usually sucked balls, but thanks to the FM and PSG there were some fantastic tunes. I agree that more can be done with fewer channels, though. Look as some of the best NES soundtracks. I feel like the PCE's audio solution was simply too inflexible, too difficult to push. 6 channels would have been just fine if there were just a little more it could do with them.

I know there have been tons of discussions here about chip soundtracks, and I do love the PCE, but the chip audio is generally frustrating to me. I do often feel let down by the capabilities, and practical applications, of the PCE's audio design. I prefer how the system handles digital sampling compared to the Genesis, and the system can do some great drum samples, but the tonal qualities of the various waveforms just don't do it for me. Again, I'm used to hearing good stuff on the NES and wondering why PCE soundtracks aren't as good, and that's something I shouldn't be thinking.

[Syntesis]

1. Contra game.

2. Bubble Bobble port.

3. Some sort of Castlevania on HUCARD.

4. Shenmue 3 on Super CD.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Good point. If you're determined to use a kazoo, use it as a kazoo. However, I doubt anyone would call a kazoo a superior instrument. The PCE sound chip does have a lot of flaws that require working around, and limit those who lack the time or talent to really push the chip. Truth told, there are many times I've thought to myself "Why didn't the PCE do anything like that?" when listening to NES soundtracks.

DEVO could make the kazoo work, I am sure. 

I think the PCE didn't do certain things with their soundtrack simply because it's a different kind of sound.  It's the same sort of argument as the kazoo and trumpet.  You could hear SID and wonder "Well dang why doesn't the SMS do that?"

... but then you can listen to the SMS and go "Well dang why doesn't the SID do that!"

Every chip does what it does, and it does it good.  I know when I hear overly arpped crap on the NES from Tim Failin, I don't wish the PCE was doing it.   I do hear amazing drums in Soldier Blade, Blazing Lazers, etc, and go "hah, \o/".   The PCE does plenty that the NES doesn't do without an additional chip.

The Genesis has 10 sound channels in total. It has the same 4 the Master System had and 6 new channels.

Yeah, I was talking strictly FM here, since it's the "new thing" the Genesis had over everything else that already existed.

The PCE was a little low on sound channels. It probably should have had 8. I'm not surprised it only had 6 considering Hudson was designing it to compete with the NES, but if Hudson had been more forward-looking, 8 channels and perhaps a discrete audio controller, instead of bundling the circuitry in with the CPU, would have been a more logical design.

Eh, 6 is a pretty solid number.  If you look at the soundtracks, would 2 more channels have really added to the sound? Probably not.  Look how much Konami did with 5 channels instead of 6.  granted they also had the PSG... you often only hear it used for drums, and sometimes they end up using all 3 PSG channels to make one drum sound...

The NES didn't need 6.  The original MSX only had 3!  6 seems fine.

The design of the PCE seems like NES mimicry in so many ways. Instead, they should have been looking at developments in arcade board design. That was part of Sega's success with the Genny. Then again, Sega had arcade hardware and software experience, and Hudson really didn't.

now, if only Sega got the "hey, dithering sucks ass" memo with their color choices for the Genesis... 
 
 

I think 10 was enough for the MD. The MD had some excellent soundtracks. The sound effects usually sucked balls, but thanks to the FM and PSG there were some fantastic tunes. I agree that more can be done with fewer channels, though. Look as some of the best NES soundtracks. I feel like the PCE's audio solution was simply too inflexible, too difficult to push. 6 channels would have been just fine if there were just a little more it could do with them.

Right, 10 was plenty.  Just like 6 was plenty.  Just because another platform has more channels doesn't mean the PCE or the Genesis would need to do the same.

You can have an obscene amount of channels on the MSX.  3 PSG, 5 SCC, 9 FM from MSX MUSIC and 9 FM from MSXAUDIO... and I guess you could slap a moonsound in there too and have enough channels to kill a human.

But, you'll never see anyone doing this because there's little point.  9 channels of FM (or 6 + FM drums),  or 5 SCC + 3 PSG (used basically as 1 channel drums), is more than enough to accomplish anything you could be thinking about doing with music on the MSX.  When you add TOO many channels, is when music starts to get all jacked up and people start to do stupid things because they can.

Again, I'm used to hearing good stuff on the NES and wondering why PCE soundtracks aren't as good, and that's something I shouldn't be thinking.

If you don't like the waveform capabilities, it will be difficult to appreciate the thing, I guess.  It's a radically different kind of sound.  I'm glad it exists.

Im also glad there aren't hipster twits making awful dancemusic crap with the PCE like they do with the NES and Gameboy.

[shubibiman]

Mortal Kombat would have sold much more TGX16 is in the US, it was so huge back then.

BUT if the PC Engine/TGX16 had the same games as the other consoles, it wouldn't have had the same appeal, at least to me, as I liked it for its own games.

Of course, I would have loved to have beat 'em ups (or at least good ones) or Contra games.