4th generation video consoles: 16-bits arrive

Let's keep going in our trip through memory lane. This thread will cover the arrival of the first 16-bit videogame consoles during the late 1980s and first 1990s. Which means I plan to speak about the PC Engine / TurboGrafx from NEC, the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive and the Super Famicom / SNES. And maybe about the SuperGrafx and the Super A'can too, we'll see.

NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 / Turbografx (1987)



Japanese PC Engine



American TurboGrafx-16 version

This console in question was first released in Japan in 1987 as the PC Engine, and was meant as a competitor to the already established Famicom / NES. It was the result of a collaboration between NEC Home Electronics and Hudson Soft. It became quite successful in its home country, but began to lose ground to 16-bit consoles like the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive. Later, it was exported to the US (in 1989) as the TurboGrafx-16 and to Europe (in 1990) simply as the Turbografx.

The console has several peculiarities... starting with a common misconception: it's not a 16-bit console but an 8-bit one, with a Hudson Soft HuC6280 CPU. What are 16-bit, and hence the confusion, are the graphics chips. While the PC Engine was more advanced than the NES / Famicom, it was no rival for the newer 16-bit consoles from Sega and Nintendo.

Another peculiarity is the game format... you could say the console uses cartridges, but they're more like memory cards, in a proprietary Hudson Soft format called HuCard. All the games are NTSC, and European consoles just switch the refresh rate from 60 to 50 Hz. when running them. However, the pinout of western and Japanese games isn't the same, so you'll need an adapter to play Japanese games on an American or European console.



As for the games themselves, there's a bit of everything, and mostly in Japanese. Naturally, There are no Nintendo titles, but there are some pretty good ports of Sega arcade hits (such as After Burner II and Out Run) plus other arcade ports from third-party developers like Capcom and Taito. The closest thing to a mascot would be the Bonk series, consisting of three titles where you guide this caveman toddler through different adventures.



We even have a port of the then ubiquitous Street Fighter II, its Champion Edition, with support for six-button controllers:



The TurboExpress is a handheld variant of the same system, available from 1990:


Its strong point was that it used exactly the same game format as the PC Engine, so one could play literally every game from the system. It also had a good quality (for the time) LCD display and could display TV through an addon.

Ufortunately, it was also expensive and batteries would be gone after just 2-3 hours of gaming. Selling at $250 - $300 it was a poor competitor to the Game Boy or the Game Gear. Running the exact same games as the PC Engine also meant running into other issues: In some games, the texts were too small to be legible.

It sold around a million and a half units in Japan and the US, because it never arrived to Europe.

In 1989 NEC launched the CD-ROM² System, its CD-ROM addon. With its release NEC anticipated Sega's future Sega CD. The addon consisted of the CD unit itself, an interface to plug it into the console and a System Card containing the BIOS.



This System Card would later be replaced by the Super System Card with 256 Kb. RAM and the Arcade Card, with 2 Mb. RAM.

Versions of the console combining the PC Engine and the CD unit arrived later, in 1991-92. They were known as PC Engine Duo and Turbo Duo in Japan and the USA.



The CD titles are some of the most interesting games for the system. There are enhanced ports from other systems, such as Snatcher, shoot 'em ups like Lords of Thunder or what probably is the best known game from the system, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.



Of course, most of them are in Japanese, but amateur translations for the system do exist.

The successor for the PC Engine arrived in 1989, and was called the SuperGrafx:



While it was much more powerful than the PC Engine, it retained its 8-bit NEC CPU and was compatible with the PC Engine HuCards and CDs.

Unfortunately, it didn't catch on and was soon retired from the market. Only five games appeared for the SuperGrafx, and most PC Engine emulators support them:

- 1941: Counter Attack
- Aldynes
- Battle Ace
- Darius Plus
- Darius Alpha
- Daimakaimura
- Madō King Granzort

Darius Plus and Darius Alpha also work on regular PC Engines.

Probably the best known game for the SuperGrafx is its port of Daimakaimura / Ghouls 'n Ghosts:



The PC Engine was finally retired from the Japanese and US markets in 1994, to make room for NEC's new console, the PC-FX. By then it had sold around 10 million units, mostly in Japan. The TurboGrafx and TurboDuo western variants sold significantly less, in part due to the competition of the Mega Drive and the SNES, but also because of minimal third-party support and a game library best suited for Japanese audiences.

The PC Engine and variants (including its CD drive) are best emulated using Mednafen (I recommend using the Mednaffe frontend) or the dedicated emulator Ootake.



The only caveat with the later is that the first time we run a CD-ROM game we'll need to set up the BIOS file. If it is correct, we'll see this screen:



Buster Bros. / Pang is one of my favorite CD games and I couldn't resist a quick game:

 

Sega Genesis/Mega Drive (1988)



The Sega Mega Drive (known as Genesis in the USA) arrived in Japan in late 1988. It was the third videogame console by Sega (after the SG-1000 and the Mark III / Master System ). It couldn't beat the PC Engine nor the Super Famicom in this country, but sold very well in the USA, Brazil and Europe. It's estimated to have sold around 31 million units, making it the most succesful Sega console of all time.

As opposed to the family firnedly image of Nintendo, Sega tried to built a more aggressive and young oriented identity. This together with its exclusive titles (such as the Sonic and Streets of Rage series) and arcade conversions explain in part of its success.

Internally, the Mega Drive was a full 16-bit system with a Motorola 68000 CPU @ 7.6 MHz. Its hardware is a cut-down version of Sega's System 16 arcade system, the same that powered games like Altered Beast , Shinobi or Golden Axe.

Also present is a Zilog Z80 CPU, normally used as a co-processor, but which also adds compatibility for Master System games. These required an adapter known as the Power Base Converter :



This addon also has a card slot, which makes me think it may also be compatible with SG-1000 games [Note from Future Neville: It is not] .

Mega Drive games came in the form of cartridges containing up to 4 Mb. of data, or 32 megabits, as it was often advertised:



Games for different zones were physically different. Japanese ones would not fit in a western Mega Drive or viceversa. Third party adapters existed, but games designed for NTSC systems would run slower and show borders in PAL machines.

Initially the Mega Drive suffered from a lack of games, a result of Nintendo's monopolistic tactics. Nintendo pressured its developers not to work for Sega or to delay their games. For this reason, many early Mega Drive games are conversions of Sega arcades (such as Altered Beast ) or games developed in-house, such as Sonic the Hedgehog or Phantasy Star II :



The sales of the console improved, and eventually this attracted developers like Electronic Arts and Acclaim Entertainment. These two developers in particular brought many sports games to the system, as well as the Mortal Kombat saga.



With time, even Konami and Capcom brought some of their greatest hits ( Contra , Street Fighter II ) to the console. The full library for the system consists of 900-1000 official games, not counting very active homebrew, translation and hacking scenes.

Note that homebrew games often employ hardware tricks to exceed the maximum game size of 4 Mb. or act as anti-piracy measures, and not all emulators will run them.

The same happens with a few commercial games such as Virtua Racing , which employed a custom SVP co-processor to display 3D graphics:



Or the Sonic and Knuckles variants. Sonic and Knuckles could be played as a standalone game, but also be plugged with the rest of Sonic games, achieving different results:



Combined with Sonic 3 , the game becomes Sonic 3 and Knuckles . Combined with Sonic 2 , the player can play the game with Knuckles instead of Sonic, and combined with Sonic the Hedgehog will produce an error screen (and according to Wikipedia, unlock a blue sphere minigame).


The Sega CD / Mega CD:



The Sega CD ( Mega CD in Europe) was a CD-ROM drive for the system released between 1991 (in Japan) and 1992-93 (rest of the world). It was likely a move to make the system more competitive against the Super Famicom / SNES and the PC Engine , which already had its own CD-ROM unit.

Unfortunately, Sega made a few mistakes with its design and release. They added a second Motorola 68000 CPU and 750 Kb. of RAM, which meant the units sold at $300 rather than the predicted $150. The system also suffered from a low number of titles during its unveiling. Despite this, initial sales were good, but eventually interest in the system faded, and by 1993 Sega barely provided new games for the subsystem.

It should be noted that the Sega CD has some great games, such as Sonic CD , The Terminator or Snatcher . And the CD format made even possible to port PC games like Dune , Rebel Assault or Secret of Monkey Island to the Mega Drive.



However, most of the Sega CD titles are just enhanced ports of cartridge games, with only some videos or Red Book audio to boast the CD capabilities. Or even worse, they rely too heavily on FMV and provide little interaction, like Night Trap .

The Sega CD sold around two million units before its demise.


The Sega 32X:



The Sega 32X was a second upgrade to the Mega Drive that appeared around 1994. It added to its hardware two RISC SH-2 32-bit CPUs @ 23 Mhz. It was an initiative by the US division of Sega, who grew concerned about the incoming release of the Atari Jaguar , a new 32-bit console that was controversially advertised as a 64-bit system. Sega had its own new console in development, the Sega Saturn , but Sega of America was worried that it would arrive too late. They released the 32X expecting it to add another year of life to the already aging Mega Drive .

Both the Sega 32X and Eventually the Sega Saturn arrived at pretty much the same time, confusing potential buyers. The 32X was cheap, selling at only $159, but required a Mega Drive. The Saturn costed more than twice, but it was a full system with a CD-ROM drive. This dual launch was a blunder that would cost Sega dearly in the future, as every new Sega console from then on would be met with skepticism.

The Sega 32X also failed to attract much attention from game developers, leaving it with a game libray of only 40 games. The most popular games for the addon use the extra CPU power to create 3D graphics, such as Virtua Fighter , Virtua Racing 32X or Star Wars Arcade :



Under these circumstances the Sega 32X only sold around 800,000 units, and many of them at bargain prizes.

To make things even more cumbersome, the Mega Drive , the Sega CD and the 32X could combine their powers to become... Captain Planet!

Well, no. This is abomination.



To be fair, there were some Sega CD games that offered better video quality when used together with a 32X . They are the 32X editions of Corpse Killer , Fahrenheit , Night Trap , Slam City with Scotty Pippen , Supreme Warrior and Surgical Strike .

As for Mega Drive emulation, there are plenty of emulators available. BlastEm is highly praised for its accuracy, but doesn't support Sega CD nor 32X games. Kega Fusion is an aging emulator (by non other than former Genesis game developer Steve Snake) that offers good accuracy while supporting regular cartridge, Sega CD and 32X games:



Or you may prefer to try more modern multi-emulators like ares or jgenesis .

 

Before I tackle the Super Famicom / SNES section, which promises to be long, I'm going to do a quick recap of... peculiar Mega Drive cartritges, for different reasons.

First of all, when I talked about the Famicom / NES some time ago, I remember listing some of the conditions Nintendo impossed on game developers. They were strict, even abusive. Sega didn't have such a bad reputation, but every Mega Drive cartridge needed a Sega license, hence the blue Sega logo that appears when they start. And naturally Sega charged developers for the privilege.

Of course, there were dissidents. At some point, developers such as Electronic Arts, Accolade, Sunsoft or Codemasters produced their own cartridges, with naturally don't have a SEga license nor show the Sega logo. I'm referring to games such as Micro Machines or Budokan .



Sega took this move very seriously. American Mega Drive consoles from 1990 onwards incorporate a TradeMark Security System ( TMSS ) chip that prevents them from playing unlicensed games. They also took the renegade developers to court, but the ruling was that bypassing the Sega's license system was legal. Consoles sold in toher markets don't have this TMSS chip.

Codemasters took the matter even further with their J-Carts . These are not only unlicensed, but they also use a proprietary technology to support two extra controllers (plus the two in the console) for multiplayer games:



Codemasters produced a bunch of J-Cart games: three Micro Machines games, two Pete Sampras games and Super Skidmarks . But they didn't license the technology to other developers, so the J-Carts became a footnote in the Mega Drive history.

Then we have the true unlicensed games. These didn't come from established game developers, but rather from places like Taiwan or Hong Kong. More often than not, their titles or other characteristics quickly give away their origin:



16 Zhang Mahjong and San Guo Zhi V respectively.

Some of them are original games, while others are poor quality ports from other platforms. Yes, even Nintendo ones. So there are Super Mario or Donkey Kong games for the Mega Drive.



Others are more mischivious, such as Virtua Fighter vs. Tekken 2 , or The King of Fighters 98 and 99 .



Don't be fooled by the captures, they're fairly mediocre games.

And finally there are the Russian games. These came years later, and they are even more daring. Some of them are also backports from newer systems or abuse licensed intellectual property, but much more recent, so much that they didn't exist during the Mega Drive commercial lifespan.



Commandos and Lord of the Rings , adapting a 1998 PC game and a 2001 movie.

You can can consult a database of Mega Drive unlicensed games from Sega Retro .

Finally, there are the Mega Drive games that were only available online. Yes, online. Sega offered different online services around the world, mainly Sega MegaNet (in Japan and Brazil) and Sega Channel (in North America). Subscribers could play a selection of full games that kept rotating, because Sega wanted to compete with the rental of cartridges.

But they also could access electronic magazines and try new games before they appeared, what they called "test drives". And since some of them were canceled or didn't appear in all regions, these exclusives are highly sought after.

Very recently many of them were dumped by the Video Game History Foundation , and among there are rarities such as The Flintstones , Popeye in High Seas High-Jinks or Pit Fighter 2 :

Even better, there's an initiative called Sega Channel Revival that attempts to reproduce the experience of using the Sega Channel. Content is organized in ROMs per month, and because the ROM sizes are outrageous (roughly 70 Mb. per month) and won't play on regular emulators, a modified RetroArch core is also included.

 

Super Famicom/Super Nintendo/SNES (1990)



The SNES is a 16-bit console created by Nintendo. It was released in 1990 in Japan, in 1991 in the US, and finally arrived to Europe around 1992. The SNES was designed as the successor to the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System / NES / Famicom , whose market dominance was threatened by more modern consoles such as the above mentioned PC Engine / TurboGrafx (1987) and Sega Mega Drive (1988).

Nintendo's new console engaged in a battle with the Mega Drive in various markets with mixed results, although globally the SNES sold more units, a total of 49 million. The market where the competition was the fiercest was the USA, where the Mega Drive (called Genesis there) challenged the SNES with very aggressive marketing, exploiting its rival's weaknesses. The SNES did not outsell the Genesis in the US until 1994.

Europeans like me had to wait for the console until 1992, and we got a redesigned PAL model:



This version of the SNES was sold for around 140E (basic package, including the game Super Mario World ) or 180E (pack including Super Mario World plus another game, usually Super Star Wars or Street Fighter II ).

Internally, the SNES had a 16-bit Ricoh 5A22 CPU, based on the WDC W65C816 employed by the Apple IIGS . That made sense because the NES used a CPU based on the MOS 6502 from the Apple II . The Ricoh 5A22 could work at three different speeds, 1.79, 2.68 and 3.58 MHz. It was inferior to the Motorola 68000 used by the Mega Drive, an issue Nintendo addressed by adding extra chips to their cartridges, something they had already done with the NES.

The SNES also included two sound chips, a 16-bit S-DSP and an 8-bit Sony SPC700 , and two graphics processors called S-PPU1 and S-PPU2 . These could output graphics up to 512x448 in reolution with 256 colors (from a 32K palette), but most games run at just 256x224 and only use the higher resolution for static screens.

Maybe to compensate for this, the SNES graphic hardware also had some hidden tricks, such as the ability to rotate and zoom on textures, which became the much publicized mode 7 .



Until the arrival of the Sega CD , the Mega Drive had to do such elaborate calculations through software.

Globally, and compared to the Mega Drive, SNES graphics have a smaller resolution but look more colorful. They also sometimes suffer from slowdowns.

SNES cartridges can hold up to 6 Mb. of data, although only two official games make use of that capacity, Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean .



They are also region protected, both through physical differences (American carts use flat connectors, the rest curved) and through software. These limitations can be partially solved through third party adapters, which Nintendo tried to discourage), but NTSC games are slower and show a smaller image in PAL consoles and viceversa.


The addon chips

Faced with an increasingly aggressive competition from Sega, Nintendo decided to advertise the addons to their cartridges. Game reviews often mentioned them, and also attributed them capabilities bordering on the miraculous. Here are some of the most popular:

1) Super FX



Developed by Argonaut Software, this addon consisted on a RISC 16-bit CPU at 21 Mhz. It was mostly used to accelerate 3D graphics like it did in Star Fox , but games such as Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island used it for additional 2D effects.

2) DSP-1, DSP-2, DSP-3 and DSP-4.



The DSP-1 chip consisted of a math co-processor, and was used in games such as Super Mario Kart or Pilotwings for creating an improved mode 7 effect.

Further versions of the same chip perform different functions in games such as Dungeon Master or Top Gear 3000 , but always related to graphics.

3) Super Accelerator 1 (SA1)



An extra CPU used in 34 games, the most popular being Super Mario RPG . The CPU itself was a modified 65C816 very similar to the primary CPU of the console.

4) CX-4



Another math co-processor, used in Mega Man X2 and X2 for generating and rotating vector graphics.

5) S-DD1



This chip is used in only two games, Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Star Ocean . It decompresses graphics on demand, because the decompressed graphics would not have fit on their 4 and 6 Mb. cartridges.

6) SPC7110



Used to decompress data in three games, the most notable being the RPG Far East of Eden: Zero , which was one of the last SNES games to be emulated.

7) ST010, ST011 and ST018



These were a series of chips developed by Seta and powered by NEC and RISC CPUs. They are used to calculate the "enemy" AI on games such as F1 ROC II: Race of Champions , Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shogi and Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shogi 2 .

All these extra chips helped the SNES to overcome the hurdle of having a lesser CPU than the Mega Drive, and also extended the life of the console. On the minus side, games with extra chips were more expensive to manufacture, and the extra cost fell on the shoulders of the consumers.

 

The game library

The game library for the SNES is one of the best from all time. Apart from games from Nintendo themselves, developers such as Capcom, Konami and Rare provided the console with some of their greatest hits.


Donkey Kong Country

A total of 1,757 games were released, including classics such as Super Mario World , Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past , Donkey Kong Country , Final Fantasy VI , Super Metroid or Chrono Trigger .

Despite this, some of Nintendo's practices drew criticism from consumers and videogame magazines. First, Nintendo still censored their games for western audiences, trying to project a family-friendly image that sometimes contrasted with the nature of the games. Mortal Kombat famously had to lose it blood effects and some of the most gruesome deaths to appear on the SNES. And Wolfenstein 3D has undergone many changes, including the removal of all Nazi imagery.

Another criticism is that many RPG and strategy games weren't released outside of Japan. Nintendo apparently decided they lacked enough commercial appeal for western players. And the same with many manga licensed games, such as many of the games in the Dragon Ball or Ranma series. Among the titles unavailable for western users were classics such as Rudra no Hihou / Treasure of the Rudras , Seiken Densetsu III (a sequel to Secret of Mana , which was released outside of Japan), Star Ocean and Tales of Phantasia .



For these reasons, the SNES hacking and translation scenes are very active. Over the years they have de-censored games, translated Japanese exclusives and even solved slowdowns in many games. This is accomplished usually by manually adding Super FX support or switching games to use FastROM, a feature which increases reading speed up to 33% in some games.

If you wish to enjoy the most out of the SNES library, visits to websites like Romhacking or RomHack Plaza are an obligation.


The gizmos

In this section we're going to review some of the most interesting addons for the SNES.

1) The Sufami Turbo



The Sufami Turbo (released only in Japan in 1996) was an attempt from Bandai to introduce a different and cheaper cartridge format. They did this by moving the most common cartridge components to the addon, and releasing carts that were closer to memory cards. They released 13 games in this format, most of them part of the SD Gundam series. Another feature was the possibility of loading two cartridges at the same time, and many of the Sufami Turbo games can be combined unlocking extra features.

For example, SD Ultra Battle was an Ultraman fighting game that would use characters from the second cartridge.

2) Nintendo Satellaview



Another Japanese exclusive. The Satellaview addon allowed users to access exclusive content through a satelite modem and a subscription. It appeared in 1995 and was supported until 2000. Between the addon, the subscription and the satelite connection it was quite expensive, which would explain that it only reached a maximum of 116.378 users in 1997.

Users would use the cartridge BS-X: Sore wa Namae o Nusumareta Machi no Monogatari as an interface to download content. These days hacked and translated versions exist.



The content included electronic magazines, but also a total of 114 games. These consisted of NES and SNES remakes, but also exclusive titles. For instance, a BS F-Zero 2 exists with new vehicles and circuits, and several shorter Zelda and Super Mario quests that often appeared in chapters. Other game variations included SoundLink games, which featured voiceover narration and were available only in especific time slots, or Monthly Event games, in which users could compete for prizes.

3) Nintendo Super Game Boy



This addon granted SNES players access to the entire Game Boy library of games. It was released worldwide from 1994 for $60. Since the SNES hardware was too weak to emulate the Game Boy, the entire GB software was included in the addon.

The SGB added a few extras to regular GB games, such an expanded palette, a border or the possibility of choosing your own palette.

Many newer GB games were also "SGB Enhanced", and included a customized border and palettes, and sometimes further extras.



A revised version of the SGB called Super Game Boy 2 was released in 1998 in Japan only. It has a few improvements over the original, such as allowing connection between consoles. It was likely released to make the Pokemon games completable.



Note than no version of the SGB supports Game Boy Color games.


Emulation

There are plenty of SNES emulators available. Among the more veteran, Snes9x is notable for offering still good compatibility with very low specs.



Among the newer emulators, I'm very fond of Mesen-S , which seems to have merged back into the original Mesen . All the game captures in this guide have been taken with its variant Mesen-S .

You may also try multi-emulators like are or Mednafen .

Note that in some cases games using extra chips will need their firmware, which you can get from emulation websites.

 

There's one last thing I should mention about the SNES, and that's the MSU-1 enhanced games.

The MSU-1 is an imaginary enhancement chip that would allow SNES games to use Audio CD and FMV extra tracks. Its enthusiasts sometimes call it the Sega CD the SNES never had. It seems that the format was created by byuu , the late creator of bsnes , higan and its present incarnation, ares .

Personally, I'm a bit on the fence anout these enhanced games. Don't take me wrong, they are a hoot, but I don't like the choice of the PCM audio format, because it can make enhanced games as big as 2 Gb., although 350-500 Mb. is a more common size. The choice of the PCM format is not a whim, though. Apparently it is required so enhanced games can work on a real console or hardware clones.

FMV videos and audio tracks for these games are often taken from contemporary remakes, although others have been recreated from scratch.

There are examples where MSU-1 enhancements are indispensable, though, and these are some Satellaview games. In the case of the BS Legend of Zelda games, this is the only proper way of playing them. This is because they were SoundLink games, and their broadcasts contained voiceovers and other extras that are missing from the ROM dumps. In these cases we should be talking more about restorations than enhanced versions.

Anyway, if you feel like experimenting, most of the most popular SNES emulators, such as Snes9x and Mesen support the format, and most of the enhanced games can be found at Archive.org .

 

Neo Geo (1990)



The Neo Geo first appeared as an arcade system around 1990, and was created by SNK and Alpha Denshi . In those days, for the owner of an arcade changing games often meant replacing the entire machine. Standards such as JAMMA already existed, but not every game adhered to them. The Neo Geo board was designed to make game changing extremely easy. Under a plastic cover there were four cartridge slots available.



The hardware consisted of a 16-bit Motorola 68000 CPU at 12 Mhz, a Zilog Z80 co-processor, a Yamaha YM2610 sound chip and 214 Kb. SRAM. What really made the difference, though, were three proprietary graphic chips by SNK, called SNK LSPC2-A2 , SNK PRO-B0 y SNK PRO-A0 , NEO-B1 and NEO-GRC . They could output graphics at a 320x224 resolution and 4,096 colors out of a 65,536 palette. They could also handle up to 380 simultaneous sprites.

The games would be developed by SNK themselves, with the assistance of other developers such as Visco , Nazca and Hudson Soft . 156 official games were produced, many of them fighting games. Sagas such as Fatal Fury , King of Fighters or Samurai Shodown would soon become familiar to arcade customers.



Garou: Mark of the Wolves

SNK's fighting games used a four button control scheme, unlike Capcom's, which used 6.

But the system also has some great action titles, such as the Metal Slug or Shock Troopers series, sports games such as Super Sidekicks or platform games like Zupapa .



Over time, the platform also attracted homebrew creators, who programmed games like Columns or Treasure of the Caribbean .

But at the same time, SNK also created a domestic version of the same system. This is where we start talking about the Neo Geo MVS ( Multi Video System , the arcade board) and Neo Geo AES ( Advanced Entertainment System , the videogame console).



Unlike other systems like the Sega Mega Drive , the Neo Geo AES wasn't a cut-down version of the arcade system. It was the real thing, with exactly the same hardware. The games were also identical to their arcade counterparts, and only game settings such as the difficulty level and the number of continues varied. Even the memory cards containing savedata could be used in both the console and in the arcades.



Naturally, this made quite the impact among the gaming community. It wasn't common at all at the time to be able to enjoy arcade quality games at home.

The downside was the cost. The console sold at a staggering $650 in the USA, and each game could cost between $200 and $300. This earned the console the nickname of "the Rolls Royce of the consoles".

In 1994, SNK launched a CD-ROM version of the console, the Neo Geo CD .



The change from cartridges to CDs was well received, because it meant among other things cheaper games. The other advantage was of course capacity. Neo Geo games usually contained from 12 Mb. of data (100 megabits) to 128 Mb (1 megabit), but now they could carry up to 700 Mb.

The Neo Geo CD shares most of its catalog with the regular machine, but it also has a bunch of exclusive games:

- ADK World (Promotional title)

- Bang² Busters / Bang Bang Busters (Prototype)

- Crossed Swords II

- Idol-Mahjong Final Romance 2 (doesn't have MVS version)

- Ironclad: Tesshō Rusha

- Neo Geo CD Special (Promotional title)

- Samurai Shodown RPG / Shinsetsu Samurai Spirits: Bushidō Retsuden

- The King of Fighters '96 Neo Collection

- Treasure of the Caribbean / Caribe no Zaihō (Prototype)

- ZinTrick / Oshidashi Zintorikku

Some of these were later unofficially converted to Neo Geo AES .

The CD system also received some criticism, mainly for using a 1X CD-ROM unit, which made loading times excruciating. A further revision called the CDZ was later released:



It keeps the 1X CD-ROM drive, but has a cache memory that makes loading times a bit shorter.

Despite the arrival of new 32 and 64-bit systems, the Neo Geo game catalog remained popular during the 1990s, especially among arcade regulars. 3D games had become the new fad, but their 2D games had little competition. However, SNK entered bankruptcy in 2.000. This had nothing to with their Neo Geo games, but rather with the failure of the Hyper Neo-Geo 64 , the arcade system that was meant to replace them.

SNK then tried a merge with pachinko manufacturer Aruze , but it didn't work as expected. Finally former SNK directives created a new company called Playmore , regained control of the Neo Geo assets and released a final batch of games for the system as SNK Playmore . We're talking about games like The King of Fighters 2001 or Metal Slug 4 (2002), that only work in arcade hardware.

When finally hardware obsolescence caught up with them, they moved to the new Atomiswave system, based on the Sega Dreamcast hardware, which also provided a better protection against piracy.

Conversions of Neo Geo games exist for a number of systems. Those for 16-bit consoles such as the Mega Drive, Sega CD or SNES are best ignored, as they are inferior to the originals.



Samurai Shodown for SEGA CD

Ports for the Sega Saturn , the Sony PSX and the Sega Dreamcast are considered to be on par with the original, give or take a few quirks.

Also worth mentioning are the Neo Geo Pocket games. The Neo Geo Pocket and Neo Geo Pocket Color were two handheld consoles released by SNK in the late 1990s. Part of their game catalog consisted of "reduced" ports of Neo Geo games, such as King of Fighters R-2 or Neo Turf Masters . While very inferior technically, they are fun games.





As for Neo Geo emulation, the best current options might be FB Neo and Raine . They both support a closed set of all known MVS / AES games plus Neo Geo CD emulation. Just remember to get their respective BIOSes, usually named neogeo.zip and neocdz.zip.

Most games can be played as either MVS or AES, and there's even a custom BIOS called Universe BIOS that makes these changes easier:

 

CPS Changer (1994)



I think every arcade emulation fan has heard of Street Fighter Zero (CPS Changer) . Until Andreas Naive and Nicola Salmoria figured out the encryption that protected CPS2 games, that was the only way to play the game, and a glimpse of what would become CPS2 emulation.

What is a bit harder is to find out what exactly was the CPS Changer . And this is the objective of this guide.

On the other hand, everyone knows about the Neo Geo , right? It was the pinnacle of 16-bit videogame consoles, a pricey console that allowed players to experience arcade games right at home, as far as they were SNK games and you were affluent (which I wasn't).

This was achieved in the simplest fashion: the technology in these arcade machines and the console was exactly the same. Basically, you could play Metal Slug or the latest King of Fighters game at home with hardly any changes. The only difference was that instead of using coins, the game offered a limited number of continues. The graphics, sounds, gameplay, everything! was exactly the same as in the arcades.

The CPS Changer was pretty much the same thing, only for Capcom CPS1 games. Capcom released it in 1994, in Japan only and in very small quantities; I believe the initial batch was only 1,000 units. It wasn't even available in stores; it was sold only by mail order. It was also quite expensive. The most common bundle included the console, an arcade stick and the game Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting for 39,800 yen ($345). Additional games cost around 20,000 yen ($173).

Only 11 games were realeased, and they are:

Tenchi o Kurau II: Sekiheki no Tatakai (aka Warriors of Fate)
Capcom World 2: Adventure Quiz
Captain Commando
Final Fight
Knights of the Round
Muscle Bomber Duo: Ultimate Team Battle
Saturday Night Slam Masters
Street Fighter II′: Champion Edition
Street Fighter II′ Turbo: Hyper Fighting
Street Fighter Zero
The King of Dragons

The release of Street Fighter Zero release is interpreted as a farewell gift from Capcom. The game was released for arcades, but not on the already obsolete CPS1 hardware; instead, it used the newer CPS2. Therefore, this version isn't 100% identical to the arcade original, it features fewer colors, a lower framerate and poorer sound quality. All for $225.

Was the CPS Changer successful? Clearly not. If Capcom intended to compete with the Neo Geo , it failed. However, there's another way to look at it. By 1994 Capcom was transitioning from the CPS1 arcade system to the new CPS2. What if Capcom only wanted to get some money out of their phased out technology? Since I found impossible to know how much money the CPS Changer costed to Capcom, but given the prize I find hard to believe they lost any money with the console.

On the technical side, there are very few surprises, because the CPS Changer are identical to their CPS1 arcade counterparts. The massive plastic capsules (they were 30 cm. long) include the following:

CPU: Motorola 68000 @ 10 MHz.
Secondary CPU: Zilog Z80 @ 3.579 MHz
Co-processors: 2x CPS Super Chip
Sound: Yamaha YM2151 @ 3.579 MHz. and Oki OKI6295 @ 1 MHz.
Graphics: 384×224 and 4096 colors, out of a 65,536 palette.

The only additions are two chips. The first translates the RGB video signal to S-VIDEO or composite video, and the second interprets the controller signals. And speaking of controllers, although the Capcom Power Stick Fighter is considered the official controller, some versions of the console don't include one. In those cases the user was supposed to provide their own, and SNES controllers were compatible.



A Capcom Power Stick Fighter controller

The console's design itself is quite amusing. The image at the top of the article? Well, that's not the console, but a game cartridge. This was simply the game's circuit board encased in plastic. And as we said, it was massive, even bigger than Neo Geo cartridges, which is saying something. The "console," on the other hand, was a tiny device that was plugged into the "cartridge" to provide video, sound, and controls interfaces.



This is what arcade aficionados call a SuperGun. That is, a JAMMA (arcade board) to TV adapter. And some users discovered that, with a little creativity, it could be used with other JAMMA boards not from Capcom. Although who knows if it was worth doing so, given their rarity and the fact that there must be much more versatile and cheaper SuperGuns available out there.

Emulation.

Let's be clear, there are no CPS Changer emulators available. And why should we need one? As we said, its games were exact copies of CPS1 arcade games. Which means that we can play them using MAME , FB Neo or Raine .

What we can emulate separately is the only "original" game for the system, the CPS Changer version of Street Fighter Zero . This we can do with the above mentioned FB Neo ...



...or with newer MAME versions. Since MAME merged some time ago with MESS (its equivalent for domestic systems), the game is also supported.

 

The final entry on this guide (unless something else comes up) is going to be for a little known Taiwanese console.

Funtech Super A'Can (1995)



The Super A'Can was developed by Funtech / Dunhuang Technology . Their intention seems evident, to get a cut of the 16-bit videogame console market. Only that by 1995 this market was already moving towards 32-bit machines like the Sega Saturn , the Nintendo 64 and the Sony PlayStation . Under these circumstances, a console built around the Motorola 68000 16-bit CPU and a library of 2D games was doomed to fail.

The machine was also expensive to produce, and was only for sale between October 1995 and April 1996. Only 12 games were ever released, while a similar number abandoned during development.



I couldn't find how many Super A'can units were sold, but apparently they were enough to cost Funtech 6 million dollars in loses and bankrutp the company.

The only emulator for the Super A'can I know of is MAME , and it's advisable to use a version above 270.







The best known game for the platform is likely this one, the fighting game Sango fighter , which also had a PC version.

Although I also enjoyed Boom Zoo , which is a Bomberman clone:

 

God, I knew I was forgetting something. The so-called multimedia appliances [shudders]

Philips CD-i (1991)



You already know of the Compact Disc and the CD-ROM formats. But those are not the only video / data / audio formats that use optical discs. There are also CD+G , which combines audio and graphics and is best known for its use in karaoke, and Video CD , which was used to distribute videos compressed with the MPEG-1 algorythm. This was, of course, before DVDs and BluRays became the new standard.

Then there's CD-i . It was meant to combine video, audio and data, to become the herald of what was then known as multimedia . Multimedia was expected to change eveybody's lives, conquer the universe and advance mankind to their next step in evolution. Well, not exactly. But let's say that in the early 1990s many companies and CEOs went a little crazy with the idea.

The CD-i format was created by Sony and Philips as early as 1984, and was presented at the Microsoft conference in Chigago in 1986. At this point, the hardware for the players was pretty much in its early stages. There was talk about using the Motorola 68000 16-bit CPU, but that was all.

Some manufacturers like Matsushita showed interest in the format, but in the end it was Philips who developed most of the software and manufactured most of the units, although models from Magnavox , GoldStar , Grundig or Sony do exist.

Finally released in 1991, Philips avoided marketing CD-i players as videoconsoles. This was done to avoid the competition from Sega and Nintendo, who dominated said products.

Instead, the CD-i was part of a short-lived attempt to create a kind of multimedia appliance intended for home use and capable of playing video, music, and educational content. The Amiga CDTV , also released around the same time, was another unsuccessful attempt to compete in the same market.

The strategy failed due to the high cost of the players (around $1,000) and the existence of more versatile and cheaper multimedia platforms, such as the PC. So, around 1993, Philips encouraged developers to create more video games, which were, after all, the best-selling CD-i titles. Despite this and launching peripherals like game controllers and an MPEG video upgrade , CD-i players still couldn't survive in the video game arena, limited by a weak hardware and high prices.

From 1996 onwards, Philips considered the American market lost and focused on the European market and on using CD-i technology for kiosk titles and multimedia demonstrations.

It is estimated that around 570,000 CD-i players were sold before its demise.

Hardware wise, the CD-i players consisted of the following:

- A 68070 16 / 32 bits CISC CPU @ 15'5 Mhz.

- A SCC66470 or MCD 212 video chip. They could show graphics from 384×280 to 768×560 resolutions with 32K colors from a 16.7 million palette.

- A MCD 221 sound chip capable of playing 16-bit sounds through 8 channels.

- 1 Mb. RAM.

- A 1X CD-ROM unit.

- As an option, cartridges adding the capability to decode Video-CD or Digital Video.

Games could controlled through trackball, keyboard, mouse or a console-style gamepad.

Now, the games... these could be divided in several categories.

1) Board games and educational titles.

2) Based on Full Motion Video, such as Escape from Cyber City , Dragon's Lair or Mad Dog McCree .

3) Ports from PC / Amiga games, such as Lemmings , Rise of the Robots or Litil Divil .

4) EXclusive games using Nintendo characters, like Hotel Mario , Zelda's Adventure and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon .

These later games are infamous, and have become part of the "legend" of the system. Not only they are fairtly mediocre games unworthy of the Nintendo name (although it was Philips who actually developed them). They also contain cartoon sequences of such abysmal quality they've become the laughing stock of the gaming community for years.

The reason behind this is that Philips outsourced the animation to the Russian based (sorry, guys) Animation Magic studio, who had to work on a tight schedule and low budget to complete the job on time.

Oh, and I should also explain how Philips ended up with the rights to use those Nintendo characters. It seems that in the early 1990s Nintendo and Philips reached an agreement. Philips would aid Nintendo in developing a CD-ROM unit for the SNES, and in exchange they would be able to use the Mario and Zelfda characters in a few games. The CD-ROM addon was never released, but Philips was still allowed the use of said characters. And used them alright.

Emulating CD-i games these days is quite the adventure. There are at least two stand-alone emulators for the system, CD-i Emulator and CeDImu , but they are a bit awkward to use. CD-i Emulator even has an annoying date/time limitation.

I always end up using MAME , for which you'll need the cdimono1.zip and cdimono2.zip files:



To use our own CD images, we choose [Start empty] :



We wait for the menu to appear, then use the File manager option to select a game:



And finally we click on the Play button to start the disc:


Hotel Mario


Defender of the Crown II

The game compatibility is... adequate, I guess. But the MPEG cartridge is not yet emulated, which keeps us away from playing some of the flashiest games for the system, such as 7th Guest , Dragon's Lair or Lost Eden .

And the mixture of mouse and keyboard controls is a pain. It has to be said.

 

According to Wikipedia, these are the only CD-i exclusives. Their list seems incomplete, though.

Maybe you're referring to RAM Raid?

P.S: No comment on those Zelda games?

 

I think they've been treated unfairly. They aren't great games, not even good ones, but they're not as bad as most people think. I've only played them in short bursts, but there are worse ways to kill time.

As for the cutscenes... some sources say the job was completed with a team of just four animators. Add to this a tight schedule and a low budget and you get what you get. If anybody is to blame for this, it should be Philips. They should have given them more resources or replaced the animation if they felt it was subpar.

Ahhh... nice. But I don't know if I should subscribe people to my threads without their permission.

 

It is not a subscription, it is a one-time notification.

 

@Vladimir Ir VY, Ah, OK. For when I quote somebody. Noted, thank you.

 

advance.

Matsushita.

prices.

I do not think there were games for the CD-i keyboard - it was quite a rare piece of equipment for browsing the Internet.
There were also games meant to be played with the default CD-i controller.

"or"?

"Fairly". I would not call them mediocre though... Pretty good games.

Definitely incomplete! There are such great things as "L’Ange et le Demon", "Shaolin’s Road" or "De Zaak van Sam".

I have
You can read my article here, but it is in Russian:
[Статья] - Philips CD-i: горькая судьба «недокомпьютера» (часть 1)
[Статья] - Philips CD-i: горькая судьба «недокомпьютера» (часть 2)
[Обзор] - Philips CD-i: горькая судьба «недокомпьютера» (часть 3)

 

@Uka, corrected some of those typos, thanks. In my defense, I know English but I don't know how to type. Also, these guides are updates of previous pieces I wrote in Spanish for another board.

But yes, those games with Nintendo characters are not very good, except maybe Hotel Mario . In the Zelda arcade games the controls and hit detection are not good enough. And if you compare those with the Nintendo games, which were throughly tested and polished... Anyway, this is just my opinion, based on just a few minutes of testing.

I'll take a look at those articles, I'm sure there will be lots of interesting stuff, such as how Philips ended up with the rights to produce games with Nintendo characters. I really should explain that. The language is not a problem, I use a browser with translation options.

Meanwhile, you didn't expect Philips to be the only ones to buy into that multimedia craze, right?

Amiga CDTV (1991)



The CDTV stands for either Commodore Dynamic Total Vision or Compact Disc Television , depending on who you ask. It was announced in 1990 and released in 1991. It was meant as direct compatitor for the CD-i , which in hindsight was a terrible idea, because both machines were a commercial failure and the expected multimedia revolution didn't catch on.

Some sources claim the CDTV was sold as just that, avoiding references to either Commodore or the Amiga . This would have been because a) the CDTV was meant to be its own thing, an all-in-one multimedia appliance unrelated to the Amiga computers and 2) because Commodore had a terrible reputation for its terrible consumer support. I'm not entirely convinced of those affirmations (the marketing, not Commodore's reputation). As you can see on the above picture, the CDTV did indeed carry the Commodore name on its case.

The CDTV was essentially an Amiga A500 with a 1X CD-ROM drive put together inside a VHS case. It could be fitted with a keyboard, mouse and a disk drive, transforming it into the most expensive A500 ever made. Which was stupid, but possible.

Apart from the reasons stated above, the CDTV failed beacuse it was too expensive (it sold for around $999) and Amiga users preferred to wait for a separate CD-ROM unit they could plug into the computers they already owned. That eventually arrived the following year in the shape of the A570 .

The software for the CDTV is a mixture of educational software, multimedia dictionaries and games. Many of the games were "enhanced" versions of titles already available for the A500 , but with Red Book audio and extra animations. There are a few CDTV exclusives that make better use of the CD-ROM format, though, such as The Case of the Cautious Condor or Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective . However they didn't remain exclusives for a long time, because they were later ported to either DOS or the Sega CD. Some even made it to the CD32 , the next Commodore videogame console based on Amiga hardware.

Emulation of the CDTV is simple enough, provided you use WinUAE and have access to both a CDTV Kickstart file and the so-called CDTV extended ROM, which you can get from emulation websites.

Then you just have to select the machine and the CD-ROM drive / image from the Quickstart menu:




CDTV logo


Trivial Pursuit



Turrican II: The Final Fight

My personal opinion is that CDTV games are hardly worth playing these days. There are not as many exclusives as in the CD-i, and in most cases you can emulate the plain Amiga versions, which is simpler.

It's still a curiosity worth trying, though.

 

Did anybody say multimedia ? Wait, I did. Several times. Nevermind.

Pioneer LaserActive (1993)



Alright. First, a quick recap about the LaserDisc format. The LaserDisc is a video format created in 1978 by MCA, Philips and Pioneer. It was the first domestic format to use optical discs and could store up to 64 minutes of analogic video per side, with a vertical resolution of 425-440 lines.

This exceeded the quality of the most popular video systems of its time (VHS and Beta), but the players were more expensive and couldn't record anything, just play the discs. However the industry would soon find some applications for the new media.



First there were arcade machines that used this new technology, usually to blend sprites with video. The best known example was Dragon's Lair from 1983, but there are others.


Dragon's Lair

The fad of LaserDisc arcade games faded after 1984, and the only survivors were shooting games like Mad Dog McCree or Crime Patrol .

The second best-know application was the distribution of films. Before the DVD and the BluRay became the new standards, cinephiles with good taste and a bulky wallet would enjoy their favorite films at home in this format.



Distribution of films in LaserDiscs ceased around the middle 1990s, with the arrival of the DVD.

Then there's the LaserActive by Pioneer, which arrived on 1993.

The basic unexpanded device is nothing more than a LaserDisc player like all the rest. It can play discs and little else.

But then there were several expansion modules (called PAC s) that significantly expanded its capabilities and turned it into a proper videogame console.

The most popular was the Mega-LD PAC , which added the capacity to play Genesis / Mega Drive cartridges as well as Sega CD discs.

The LD-ROM² PAC added support for PC Engine HuCard and CD-ROM² games.

But this didn't end up here. Both the Mega Drive and the PC Engine modules granted access to a limited library of 30 games that used the console hardware plus the LaserDisc format. They are called Mega LD and LD-ROM² respectively, and they are mostly exclusive of this platform.

We could divide these games on three categories: educational / interactive titles (such as 3D Museum or I Will: The Story of London ), FMV heavy adventures (like the JB Harold series or Myst , which was planned but not released for the platform) and rail shooters like Pyramid Patrol or Hyperion .

And no, the LaserActive didn't exactly sell like hotcakes. The player alone costed around $1000, and the console PACs $600 each. By 1993 it was way cheaper to buy the consoles separately. And neither the Mega Drive nor the PC Engine were exactly cutting edge technology in 1993, but more like near the end of their lives.

So it seems like the LaserActive only sold like 10,000 units.

The LaserActive game library is not very well known among retro gamers, and for good reasons. Decent dumps of the games were not available until recently, thanks to initiatives like the Mega LD Dumping Project , and an emulator to play the games was also needed.

Very recently (August 2025) the multi-emulator ares announced support for both Mega LD and LD-ROM² games from v146 onwards. Even better, the team behind claimed most games for the platform were playable.

I can attest to that:






ares running Hyperion (Mega LD)

The emulation is still a bit cumbersome. Naturally, BIOSes are needed and not easily found, there are some speed issues (which I'm told are already solved in nightly builds) and each LaserDisc dump is around 30 Gb. in size. But the games are indexed playable, and during my testing I didn't see any obvious sound or graphics issues.

 

The phorum won't let me mention the "ares" emulator LOL It rewrites every mention of it to "is" or "are".