profkross

Without a sit down, tilting cabinet, the Outrun experience is incomplete. Which reminds me did Daytona UA deluxe edition have any tilt in its cabinet? I kind of remember it being really immersive but I think that was just the giant screen and gear shifters not any hydraulic system.

John, I can see this article and subject matter is very close to your heart. Having read your Japanese Interview books, its apparent that you've not only grown as a writer, but you're finding a great way of bridging your personal stories and factual information, really well written stuff here, and the info provided by Paul is pretty fascinating and rounds this whole story off really well, since he was a voice of the organized piracy scene, whereas a lot of us were just gamers buying bootlegs, and asking too many questions would quickly get you stonewalled, because guys were suspicious of the police and FPB.

I grew up in Joburg, and then spent a lot of time in Cape Town from 2002. There were a lot of bootleg PC discs and Carts in the flea markets during the 90s, but not many PS1 games, it took a while for PS1 to become a hot item, maybe 99 / 00. By that stage the PS2 was THE console as you know well, everyone wanted that machine. I feel like the copy scene really took off ith the arrival of the PS2, in Cape Town there was a store on the corner of Long Street (opposite the current KFC, ironically just down from Barcadia) run by a guy who had a very high quality setup, where he had originals on display (imports) but would sell bootlegs on the sly. Before this, in the mid 90s, just a few km away at the V&A waterfront there was a store that sold bootleg Sega (and probably other) carts, which to some may indicate how unregulated the whole industry was, however this store was definitely an exception, most stores like Dions or Stax did not have bootlegs for sale.

One interesting area of potential research could be the overlap of imports of copied DVDs and games, like if they came in the same batches, out of the same factories etc. Because the whole DVD industry was so big here, even outside of piracy music stores started having huge sections just devoted to DVDs whereas their game sections stayed pretty small by comparison. But then by the late 2000's we had game stores like BT Games spread quickly, and since everyone was switching to digital, DVD's kind of went out of fashion mostly, first with the music stores, and then with the game stores like BT Games.

Also something I didn't realize, but was recently told to me, the arcade scene in SA was also fragmented between official cabs and bootlegs. A lot of the bootlegs were run by Portuguese / Madeiran guys who already had feet in the coin op space. And even Today if you are importing components like buttons or arcade joysticks you need to get a permit (like R50 or so) just to not have your shipment held up because they are still classified under gambling devices or something like that.

Good write up John. Did you visit Barcadia while you were in Cape Town?

The source code of mediocre games should be freely shared so that people can more easily study 'what went wrong'. In this case, those damned cut scenes lol

Anyone read his original book and have anything to comment about it? Seems like a great history piece

How about a Golden Axe Death Adder throne chair? Or an Outrun chair with space for a shifter and wheel, deluxe version can even tilt

I love how well Sega have pivoted from pure video game company to IP marketing underdog punching way above their weight.

Maximo was a huge disappointment for me, mainly because the game was so incredibly dark, the last thing you want in a 3D platformer.

Something worth noting, Acclaim had a 5 year publishing license with Midway, signed around March 1990. And Richard Divizio (Kano) has said that the actors resigned their contracts during the shoot, so Acclaim was already negotiating with Midway in early 1992. Fischbach (Acclaims boss, who made the decision to pull the game from Software Creations?) said that for Acclaim to get Mortal Kombat from Midway they had to negotiate a reduced royalty rate, and payment in advance, a big risk considering noone knew if the game was just going to be a poor Street Fighter 2 clone or not at the time. All this is to say that the July timeline for this Fax lines up pretty well.

nice reporting guys, the Mortal Kombat Kommunity is extremely grateful!

@Sketcz Thanks for the response. I've read many interviews, including the ones in your books, and find many Japanese devs from the 70s, 80s and beyond come across in those translated interviews as quite humble, thats why i was wondering if Naka was maybe just an outlier for Japanese culture. Of course given the other stories we hear about him... it makes me think he was a bit of an odd case. The whole rockstar programmer thing didn't seem to be as apparent in their game culture until guys like Hideki Kamiya came onto the scene in the 2000's. Well maybe Yoshiki Okamoto before this, because he was so outspoken and bold, but the others, very many of them come across as quite reserved. Like if I think about Mark Cerny, and how he would have been compared to Naka it seems like they had completely opposing personalities, even though Cerny was still a hyper competitive guy.

@Sketcz Lets not forget the 3D controller, which is released with Nights into Dreams, a innovative piece of hardware that was paired and promoted with the completely wrong game.

No doubt Naka had a hand in that one too.

A half decent sonic game with that controller could may have given the Saturn a second chance, at least for Sega's first party game sales.

Reading about Yuji Naka strikes me as someone quite unlike a lot of Japanese developers, where he is extremely talented, but quite selfish, unlike many Japanese developers who are very much team players. Am I wrong? You've interviewed a lot of Japanese developers what do you think?

I hope one day we learn more about his life re: Sega, as there dont seem to be many resources or interviews with the man, which is a shame since he is one of the most important figures in the history of the game industry.

It was always so stupid to me that they didnt include bartop versions of their cabinets. And then take it further and do a bartop compilation with all the games you have licenses for, and make a bartop version of that multi game system too for a higher fee. So many missed opportunities with these guys.

There used to be something called a 'Nakayama Button' in Sega's offices. That checks out.

In the preview videos it looked like the device was usable closer to the screen. Glad I didnt pre-order, because for a 65 inch screen 3m is FAR too much distance. I think with the old Deluxe cabinets the distance was around 1.2m or so. Thats a far more immersive experience than standing 3m away. And its not nitpicking, its how the game was designed.

@slider1983 Your Zool mascot is very telling.

When people say that its just shorthand for 'lack of engineering and animation polish' compared to most Japanese works. What may help give people more tolerance is some context on the game before loading it up in a browser emulator (e.g this game was made in two weeks, including sound and music by a 20 year old programmer with little to no budget).

Tomonobu Itagaki... A true modern day samurai. He lived with a code of honor, but also in a way that was incredibly brave in a culture that often looks down on rebels and outsiders.

I too am sad that Itagaki-san cannot spend more time with his closest friends and family. My respects to everyone who was close to him.

As historians theres two options here.

1) Concede that you cant be so protective of the past anymore, and just let stuff go.

2) Re-assess which parts of history are valuable to you, and hold AI to a high standard.

You can do both, it doesnt have to be one or the other.

I cant believe this popped up in Italy... wow

Edit: Or maybe they got it from Japan somehow?

Great journalism here, unearthing some hidden treasure.

You met a legend Ollie, thank you for sharing your interview.

No T-Rex? No buy

Ill gladly sacrifice dialogue text for action games to not have those ***** US shaped carts.

Didnt someone else also work on the bangers, like the level 2 (motor bike highway level) music?

@Zeebor15 If you're only buying a switch to play Path of Radiance perhaps you arent the target market chap.

@Razieluigi I dont agree with your assumption that it 'didnt matter much'.

It was a marketing error, plain and simple. Why? Because if consumers had seen it side to side with a NES, and those graphics, it would have made an extremely strong impression. People struggle to take accountability for their bad business decisions, and this is one of those times. They could have made a massive dent in the US market if it wasnt for that awful design. Looks matter.

As for the name, I agree with you totally, its a very cool sounding name and clears up confusion on the PC bit quite a lot.

How was this only revealed now !

@cyxceven 2D games on PS1? was that a typo?

@FPGAguru Id be happy to be proven wrong, if you can show me a compatibility list on a per game basis for various consoles and arcade boards (like the compatibility lists that have been readily available in the emulation community since the 90s).

FPGA has been a non starter for many of us retro gamers, because game compatibility even on 2D games has been so poor compared to traditional emulation,. How is Superstation any different in terms of compatibility with the VAST playstation library?

If I was Namco I would change the site to simplify the groupings of IP, have all their racing games together in one place, and offer companies bulk licensing for a racing themed initiative. And so forth for other genres, like Dark Souls / Code Vein / Elden Ring etc. But then have one 'Legends' category which is Namcos big five, Tekken, Pac Man, Dark Souls etc and put that at the top of the page.

@Teksette I agree, a very well made, hidden gem.

@smoreon Great comment, thank you!

Am I the only one hoping the next episode is leading up to him faking a life threatening illness to get out of this whole situation? That would be so wild... but extremely fitting for this guy.

@Guru_Larry Do you know why the studio hated CEX stores? Werent they specializing in games back during that time and not general used goods?

@Digglerdig I feel sorry for these people, they must live in constant delusion or anxiety.

Surprised Pikachu face. 200 orders * 490 euros = 98,000 euros. Lets assume only 10% go through, thats still 9,800 euros for tanking your reputation, getting a lot of unwanted attention, and basically having to lie your way through the next 4 years as your product doesnt get released. Is it worth it?

@RejectedAng3L The value proposition was huge. Imagine if the original NES could play VHS tapes. It was basically on that level

Some next level trolling / scam baiting here, wonder how this guy has gotten all these publications to cover his stuff if so.

Why would you look at year 2000 reviews for a game from 1996 or 1997? You have to check the print publications as thats all most of us had.

@RadioHedgeFund Hard disagree, Croc actually got a very positive reception for Playstation owners. You might have your numbers skewed due to the nintendo bias at the time. Was it as good as Tomb Raider? Certainly not, but it was a free roaming 3D platformer that complimented Crash very well, and came out before Spyro.

In the pre internet days one or two video game magazines (gamepro, egm etc) were absolutely essential reading if you werent in the biz and wanted to stay updated on new games and tech. Dark times lol.

***** the wii-u.

Thats all.

Isnt FPGA just piggybacking on the work already done on software emulation, and adding a hardware layer to the emulation? Mame already began to offer support for various arcade boards 30 years ago, and surely it took a lot of reverse software engineering to get emulation on many games like Mortal Kombat up to par?

So what im asking is, are these FPGA developers building on the work done by software reverse engineering projects like Mame, or not?

Not a fan of the writer using the word 'steal' here. We all use references and then hopefully attribute those facts to references, and Gemini is already starting to do the same (like chatgpt and bing search started doing last year). Does that mean we are stealing too when doing that?

@Daggot When you play Outrun on a deluxe tilting cabinet it 'clicks'. But for every Outrun, there are many hundreds of arcade games out there that are hardly any different being played in mame with a modern Stick than on a corner store arcade without good working controls. Being content that things are not 100% is important to not get stuck on details. For example how will we ever emulate older electro mechanical games that used flourescent paint? We cant, all we can hope for is some reasonable approximation of the experience from youtube or info about the game and then guess whether the experience was that great to begin with or not. Some of my favorite experiences in gaming was playing Lost World with properly calibrated guns in that deluxe cabinet back in the day. I know that it wasnt a perfect game though, the guns lacked recoil compared to the cabinet nearby (L.A Machine Guns) and sometimes the arcade would be a bit noisy, but the experience was 'good enough'. I dont replay it on mame because I havent found a good light gun replacement yet (Sinden requires you to be too far from your screen). And thats fine, because there are hundreds of other games aside from Outrun Deluxe and Lost World that are worth playing, which didnt require lavish setups.

But more power to you, if you feel its worth re-building the outrun experience as it was intended, its a noble pursuit. But most gamers are just taking the low hanging fruit, and thats ok I think because it keeps a lot of those old games alive. For example Outrun played with a gyroscope / Accelerometer on switch (not sure if its possible but if so I can see it being pretty decent).

@JJtheTexan I think these things are mainly made for collectors, not casual or hardcore gamers that arent collectors. And of course the Japanese market, which being an outsider im not sure I will ever really understand vs a person who grew up in that culture. Guess that would explain the term 'memories' in the cartridge title.

Good old 'hollywood accounting' come soon to a video game near you.

Is it too much to ask just for a cheaper polymega at this point? Yet noones done it :/