/vr/ - Retro Games

>>478719
Damn, that's sexy

>>478719
>Pluto no longer a planet
>Sega no longer a console

>>478882

Wow, this is the stuff of legends. The fact that only two exists makes me want to see this in a museum.

>>478719
the 3DO M2 always made me wonder
not sure what wouldve came out of it

http://ultimateconsoledatabase.com/unreleased/m2.htm

>>478950
I remember.

It also had a giant red controller that sort of looked like a mesh between the DC and boomerang PS3 controller

>>478719
I'm one of the last few Netlink players that actively plays. Would fucking love to have this. It's a damn shame there are only two of these in existence and at least one of them is in fucking Japan.

Did the guy ever get the $15,000 he was asking for the Jaguar Oculus Rift prototype?

>>478978
every prototype ive seen of it looks different from one another.

>>478882
>Pluto "WAS" one of the coldest planets in the solar system
>Sega was "cold" company, constantly at war with it's own branches in the US and Europe

>>478991
>netlink players
>still playing

Fucking how? Wasn't that all through dialup AND through SEGA's services?

Can you really still have two people play each other in saturn bomberman on two halfs of the country through real hardware in this day and age?

>>479015
Superman couldn't have made a leap that big, bro.

>>479040
It's P2P.

I always thought this NES prototype was sexy as hell.

Granted I'm really glad they decided to go with a + dpad instead of those square ones.

But damn, that zapper is gorgeous

>>479040
No, just Phantsy Star

>>479062
Yeah, the D-Pad is terrible on that thing, but everything else is absolutely gorgeous.

>>479062
I agree about the zapper. Wish they would have kept that design.

>>479087
Kinda makes me think of this

>>479062
Reminds me of the Master System controller.

>>479093
Which is terrible.

>>479062
What? Were they trying to turn the NES into a Commodore or something? Did the Famicom even have a tape deck/keyboard?

>>479092
>>479087
Was wrong. It folded out -_-

>>479095
Honestly, that's why I love having a Master Gear for my Game Gear. It makes SMS games playable.

Behold the Jagduo. An Atari Jaguar with built in Jaguar CD attachment.

>>479106
Yes, actually. That stock trading software used it, and nothing else.

>>479110
In all fairness, that's just as fucking cool.

Nintendo Playstation

>>479121
Indeed. Alot better than the design that stuck

>>479112
you can plug in a genesis controller into a master system, its what i do

>>479110
Still looks cool as hell.

>>479126
God damn, no one bought this shit, why were they thinking making more of it would work?

>>479134
Because Atari likes to run shit into the ground.

Can you even imagine playing with this

>>479134
Well, it would have worked better than the original plus the CD unit. Also looks nice.

>>479062

I really wish I could track down someone working for nintendo at the time and ask a few things about this design.

Like, why the keyboard? Or rather, why did they nix it? The plaque in the photo (pic related) talks about game editing. Sweet jeezus, how awesome would it have been to be able to modify games? Also, can you imagine how many kids would have turned into brilliant programmers just from playing with their nintendo?

I'd also like to ask about the tape drive since I'm really curious at what part of the design cycle they decided to go with ROM carts and why. My first guess would be that it's too easy to copy tapes, but they could have used some proprietary tape cartridge to alleviate that. I'm glad they didn't though, or the old NES games I've had since I was 6 would probably have worn out a long time ago.

I also want to know why they changed the zapper design. I mean look at it. It's gorgeous. I also dig how the hinged design lets you change it from a pistol to a wand. Whoever decided to drop that design should be slapped.

>>479131
Never even realized it. I feel dumb as fuck.

>>479062
Looks like a tape deck. Makes sense, what with the Crash. No-one wanted to try to market a video game system.

>>479148
Probably would have felt a lot like a SNES controller, just sorta upside down.

>>479131
You're still not using a great controller, though.

>>479148
>n64 controller without middle prong

yeah

>>479162
You better not be implying that the Genesis controller isn't great. Because it is.

>>479165
It's okay. D-pad is shit though.

>>478950
Then they would've released a not shitty port of Doom there.

>>479134

because business.

Think about it. You're an executive. Sales figures don't lie, you know your company is on its way down the shitter because you just bet the farm on R&D for a new console that didn't sell. The end is inevitable, it's just a matter of when.

Do you:
1) tell the investors "Sorry guys, I fucked up! We really can't fix this, the hardware isn't selling, the devs aren't making games, we're pretty much screwed", after which the board replaces you because the investors are calling for blood even though it doesn't really matter because nobody can save your company at that point

2) Put on your nicest suit and biggest car-salesman smile and tell your investors that the company will be printing cash if they can just release a better version of the console, thus attracting new customers and renewed interest, so you can squeeze the last few drops of investment capital from them to share amongst yourself and your executive colleagues so you'll at least be rich when you're unemployed

I mean your company is fucked either way, so you might as well just cashgrab all you can.

>>479172
I have no idea what bizarre alternate universe you live in in which the Genesis D-pad isn't comfortable and responsive, but I never want to go there.

>>479184
Yup, 3DO had a lot of great games, dont hate too much. Space Hulk, Crash N Burn, Road Rash, Need for Speed, Gex
although a lot of those were ported to other consoles, I miss my 3DO.

>>478950
Look at that wicked controller. Looks almost as comfortable as a n64 controller :/

>>479201

not that anon, but it seems that people either like the cut-out + dpads like nintendo uses or the solid dpads with raised + or arrows like genesis or master system, and whichever one they like, they hate the other

>>479062

for some reason that display doesn't include the actual console deck that the keyboard and tape storage were supposed to plug into. Pic is an old brochure that Nintendo was considering for advertisement material

>>479270

and here's how everything was designed to fit together to save space. Holy crap this thing is sexy as fuck. It looks like it's straight out of an 80's sci fi cartoon

>>479282

Too bad infrared always sucked.

>>479282
>infrared controllers

Not looking so hot anymore.

>>479270

it also looks like at this stage of development, they already had cartridge design finalized, since that looks like a regular famicom cart sticking out of the top

>>479150
>Like, why the keyboard? Or rather, why did they nix it?

Keyboard suspiciously looks like the MSX or any other jap computer at the time. My guess they were going to introduce their own line of MSX clones. Of course we all know the NES was designed to be sold at toy stores in the US. All you really needed was a controller to play games so I imagine they opted for something more simple.

>>479292

they probably would have been perfectly viable in Japan, where judging by the short Famicom/SF controller cords, kids don't sit any farther from their console than just a couple feet.

One of my friends had some of those old shitty IR controllers for the NES. They really weren't all that bad if you were really close to the console.

>>479317
This isn't Japan, and they weren't marketing this to Japan.

>>479062
I think this design of the NES is symbolic of Nintendo's hesitance to enter the home video game market. The video game crash had just happened in the US, and so they started with or just experimented with an entire computer like the Commodore 64 with an emphasis on gaming, hoping it would result in more sales.

This explains why the NES looks so different from the Famicom. Nintendo designed a computer for the US market and then just miniaturized the designed.

>>479325

How do you figure? I'm sure the design specs were from the engineers in Japan and the nintendo people in the US didn't get much more input than simply designing the casing.

>>479123
hi res

Great. Now I will live an entire life knowing there is a hole left in my heart by another Sega product I will never receive.

Just fucking with ya. That is pretty cool.

>>479370
That is absolutely beautiful.

good thing they didn't name it Pluto or else they would have been cranked by neil degrasse tyson declassifying it

>>479241
I love Nintendo's D-pads and I love Sega's. Both are excellent! And now, no one makes good D-pads anymore. Sony's are awful, Microsoft's are awful. Nintendo's are still good, but the 3DS and WiiU ones aren't their best.

The Sega Saturn analog controller is probably one of the best controllers of all time. Would have love to have used it with a Pluto. Shame Netlink never really took off.

>>479106
I'm pretty sure it had a floppy disk drive.
Not sure how proprietary the floppies were, I think they cost 1000 yen and the games were also cheap, you could take them to a kiosk and get a new game every time.

>>479424
If I ever get enough spare parts, I want to attempt to build my own Sega Neptune, but with a Sega unit added on.

>>479481
Sega CD* unit added on.

>>479480
There was a famicom disk drive. I'd love to get one someday, but it's pretty low priority.

>>479370

I always imagined the breakup to be something like this:

>Nintendo: Hey Sony, you know that little project we've been working on together?
>Sony: Oh yeah! The CD drive for the Super Famicom! Hey we're actually just about done with with the hardware design. We even have all these nice mockups of the console you can use for marketing and building hype, and the programmers are working on some amazing tech demos to show off the capabil....
>Nintendo: Yeeeaaaahhh.... we kinda need to have a little chat about that.
>Sony: Oh? Is there a design change we need to implement? That shouldn't be a problem as long as it doesn't interfere with the finalized chipset and...
>Nintendo: Oh no, nothing like that. We just need something removed.
>Sony: Oh sure, a cost saving measure huh? Lower prices will definitely help sales. What do we need to get rid of?
>Nintendo: All of it.
>Sony: Pardon?
>Nintendo: the whole thing. We're going to leave the SNES as is, and our boys came up with a cartridge-based system, and we'll be using that for our 64 bit console
>Sony: But... wait a sec... we're like basically done. Like it's not a damn drawing, we have actual hardware undergoing testing.
>Nintendo: Yes yes and we think it was sweet of you to help out so much, but we don't need it now. K-thanks.
>Sony: Now wait just a damn minute. We just designed a goddamn CDROM drive to make your console 10 times better than it was. We built you a fucking CD-based machine that's better than everyone else's! CD's are the future of games!!
>Nintendo: nope, we're gonna stick with carts.
>Sony: Fucking lol, you asshats think you know more about media distribution than motherfucking SONY?? You done fucked up, son. We're gonna take our shit home and make our own console. Your shitty SNES was nothing but a controller port for our CD system anyway.
>Nintendo: lol, a sony game console. Good fucking luck.

Something like that anyway

>>479541
Get to the part where Sony tried to massively dick over Nintendo by taking all rights to anything released on the CD system.

>>479040
Doesn't even use the internet. Direct dial. All you need is a landline... which is quite rare these days.

>>479580

actually I think it's kinda funny that Nintendo didn't see that coming a mile away when they tried to get into bed with a fucking visual media and recording industry conglomerate. I mean it's Sony... as in Sony Pictures, Sony Music Entertainment... divisions that suck in billions from rights, license fees, royalties, etc.. Sony craves rights to media like Jamal craves crack.

>>479621
SEGA PRIVATE SERVERS UNITE

I've heard that if you run Phantasy Star Online on dream cast and connect to the japanese server, it might work for a few seconds then hackers might actually fuck up your dreamcast reading lens, rendering the machine useless, is that true?

A guy in college told me it happened to him doing just that.

>>479580
Let's be fair here

The rights could have been negotiated

Nintendo didn't have to pull a dick move on Sony because it felt a little insecure

And they teamed up with Phillips which isn't even a japanese company, that was the greatest insult of all and ignited a fire under Sony's ass, gave them the passion to smack them down during the playstation 1 years


worst mistake nintendo ever made, except for the virtual boy

and the WiiU now it seems

>>479643
Visual boy is even worse of a mistake, it's a barbarity to even conceive it in the first place.

>>479641
It's bullshit. I believe there are private PSO servers... or there were a few years ago. All you had to do was dick with your router's DNS settings to reroute the DC's requests to the desired server... but my memory ain't what was I talking about again?

>>479673
It was a sad tale, that Virtual Boy

It was conceived by Gunpei Yokoi, the father of the Gamboy, which was a massive success

According to David Sheff's book Game Over, Yokoi never actually intended for the Virtual Boy to be released as it was. However, Nintendo pushed the Virtual Boy to market so that it could focus development resources on the Nintendo 64

>>479778
Yeah, Yokoi had planned for it to be an RGB system, and wanted to wait until the price of the then-new blue LEDs would drop to decent levels. Nintendo all but threw it out the goddamn doors, then word has it Yokoi was so burned out by this that he worked on the Wonderswan, and Nintendo had him killed for it.

>most of these are incredibly sexy
>modern dev consoles look like shit

>>479778

funny thing is. my VB is one of my favorite old systems.

I guess just because there's nothing else like it. It was definitely an interesting piece of tech.

Amazing. There is more to the Sega story than there seems...

>>479193
I think Atari failed in the long run because no kid wanted to be the one with the Atari. No matter how many 7800000s and Jaguars and Lynxes they released, they would forever be known for the Atari 2600, and no kid wanted be the loser with "the Atari" in an age of Genesises and SNESes, much less Playstations and N64s.

>>479878
Yeah, but they dug their own grave on that.
Corrupt business practices, no understanding of the market and no quality control whatsoever eventually did them in after the "throw money at it and it'll make you even richer" bubble of the Reagan era burst.
Pic related, perhaps the sexiest, most progressive thing they ever put out. But flaws even an idiot could have spotted like no battery life and cartridges with half the space of a game boy cartridge kept it from going anywhere.

>>479040
>>479621

Correct it's P2P and actually works internationally. There's a Netlinker from Brazil that's had a lot of matches with players in the US and Canada. I haven't played against him myself yet but the Netlink either works perfectly without any lag at all or it doesn't work at all.

And it's not just a land line it has to be an analog land line. So if you're using phone services through your cable/internet provider it's no good. Much more rare. That's usually what stops new Netlinkers from being Netlinkers.

>>479370
Is that actually real? If so, does anyone own one and have the ability to show it off? I imagine it had some sort of menu like the Playstation did.

>>479968
It's real. Sony was going to make a CD based attachment for the SNES, but Nintendo ended up screwing them over pretty badly. Apparently, Nintendo as a company was a bit of a dick back in the day, and thought their shit didn't stink.

Nintendo eventually let go of the idea of adding a CD based add-on to the SNES and just settled with the FX chip. In the aftermath of the whole CD add-on debacle, we got the CDi's shitty Zelda and Mario games, and Sony went on and made the Playstation as a big "Fuck You" to Nintendo.

>>479935
>But flaws even an idiot could have spotted like no battery life

I wish people would stop using this argument because nobody back then actually cared about battery life.

Everything chewed through batteries. It was a fact of life. Lynx didn't have a shit battery life, Gameboy just had an unusually good one because it was so low tech in comparison. We're talking about a point in time where a lot of people had portable stereos that would chew through 8 D-cells in just a couple hours.

Plus it's not like the Lynx didn't have an ac plug, a dc plug, and an external battery pack all available as accessories.

The console had it's problems, but calling them idiots over the battery life is like calling the automotive engineers of the 50's idiots for not giving a shit about fuel efficiency.

>>480026
as a kid I didn't want one because of the battery life. I got the gameboy instead.

>>480026

THIS

Jesus. I had a Game Gear and loved the hell out of it, it was better on batteries than my Walkman was. When the batteries wore out you put new ones in. The first I heard about my GG's bad battery life was in the 21st century on the Internet.

Also this. Want so damn bad.

>>480043

Did you have to buy your own batteries with your allowance or something like that?

>>480058
Not him, but I know that yes, I did.

>>480026
>I wish people would stop using this argument because nobody back then actually cared about battery life.

I did, I got one as a present shortly after launch and I could barely play the thing, had to change batteries almost daily until I could afford to buy rechargeables, but by then I was sick of it and used it for my gameboy instead.

>Everything chewed through batteries. It was a fact of life. Lynx didn't have a shit battery life, Gameboy just had an unusually good one because it was so low tech in comparison. We're talking about a point in time where a lot of people had portable stereos that would chew through 8 D-cells in just a couple hours.

My walkman lasted about eight hours in constant play, my Lynx was dead after two (despite being advertised having a 4-6 hour span).

>Plus it's not like the Lynx didn't have an ac plug, a dc plug, and an external battery pack all available as accessories.

Things that kind of made the portability of a system redundant. I bought it because I was going to use it on long trips, my family traveled a lot and I was encouraged to spend time outdoors as a kid, even while gaming.

>The console had it's problems, but calling them idiots over the battery life is like calling the automotive engineers of the 50's idiots for not giving a shit about fuel efficiency.

Two fucking hours! Two! I had friends that owned the system that complained about the same thing, so it was not just an isolated incident on my part. And besides, you are completely ignoring my other, bigger complaint directed at how small the game cartridges were. Kind of defeats the purpose of having your system 16-bit when it has problems hosting NES sized games.

>>480026
Are you that same guy from the Gameboy thread yesterday?

Battery life is important in a portable device. And I'm glad you didn't have to worry about batteries, many others did. It's why everyone I knew owned a Gameboy.

>>479968
I'm sure it was just a plastic shell for a mock-up, with probably nothing inside. Still, there probably was some software for the PS at the stage when this mock-up was created.

>>479732
>>479641
No no, what you did was you changed the DC DNS using the browser, then using action replay or codebreaker to boot up PSO with a code that connects you to a private server

its pretty fun, I met my wife on the sega PSO servers. all time favorite game

>>478991
>>479621
>>479943
...So, is there some sort of website or something where you can go to read about this and coordinate games and stuff? I think this is fascinating and I would love to read about it even if I never actually did it myself.

>>480152
I've seen this "i met my wife on PSO" post a couple of times here

is it you posting it or did PSO actually find people this many wifes or is this a troll

>>480050
Game Gear had a much better battery life and just design in general than the Lynx. I mean it had too, it came out a year after both it and the Game Boy.

>>479968
http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/the-making-of-playstation

>>479317
>judging by the short Famicom/SF controller cords,
kids don't sit any farther from their console than just a couple feet.
>in just japan

>>480103

>my Lynx was dead after two

That's strange, mine lasted 5ish

>Things that kind of made the portability of a system redundant.

My laptop can only go for 5ish hours without an alternate power source, I still consider it portable. Besides, I got my Lynx for the same reason as you: family traveled a lot. That's why I had a dc plug for car use and the external battery pack for flying. I also had the battery pack for my GameBoy.

>I was encouraged to spend time outdoors as a kid, even while gaming.

Well I concede that makes things a bit different, but I'd also argue that this alone means the Lynx was not a good fit for you regardless of battery life. The screen was absolutely worthless for use in any kind of sunlight. I'm not sure how you managed to play it outdoors without damaging your eyesight from strain.

>you are completely ignoring my other, bigger complaint

No I'm not, I said the console had its problems. You even quoted this. I was specifically addressing the battery life complaint.

I guess we just have to agree to disagree since you and your friends seemed to have vastly different experiences as far as how long the batteries lasted. I also never used the batteries for hours on end anyway because the only times I was away from alternate power sources that long was when I was in school, or when I was playing (not videogames) outside.

I really am curious how I was able to get over twice the battery life as you. Did you have a model 1 or 2? I had a 2 and I know they made some improvements in battery life in the redesign

>>480161
If you look up the netlink you'll see a few videos I made on youtube. Also there's this Netlink forum. Everyone is bro tier.

http://www.saturnleague.com/

>>479943
AT&T here. Even POTS is digital in the middle. Costs too much to run analog anymore.

>>480581
Well those are the only phone lines that work with Netlink. No one has used the purely digital shit successfully. At best you get a connection that instantly freezes if it even connects at all.

There are users on the netlink forum that have bought phone line simulators to run little lan parties. I'd like to eventually pick up or build a phone line simulator so I can do the same.

>>480759
I believe all you need is a 9V power source and a few other components to build the box that supplies the line voltage the modem needs to work its mojo. I stopped being interested in it after I got my EE degree, and the DCemulation forums became filled to the back teeth with assholes.

>>479643
Nintendo felt insulted by Sony. Console manufacturers make money out of software sells. Sony wanted to take that away from Nintendo. That would have killed Nintendo and Nintendo might have ended up into a subsidiary of Sony. The reason Nintendo went with Philips was in order to retaliate against Sony. To bad Sony revisionist history always paint Nintendo in a bad light.

>>480375
I... want this. Badly.

>>479809
The weird thing about Yokoi is that Nintendo is a company with a low turn over rate, even lower than most japanese companies. Its ilogical to think the VB was the reason of him leaving the company. The real reason was that Yoko had an affair with Yamauchi's waifu. The he called his Yakuza connections and had him dealt with.

>>480174
Indeed, the GG gets a bad rep about its battery life but I was able to use it for 6 hours with no problem.

>>478719
Don't know if anybody mentioned, but there was a planned Sega Neptune. 32X/Saturn hybrid.

There was also the Neptune, basically a Genesis+32x, planned when Sega was shitting out consoles

>>481623
The illuminati was involved somewhere in there, I know it.

>>481676
>>481683
Neptunemind
But yea it was Gen/32x

>>481683
>>481676
>>481701


>>480050

>>481586
Well what I'm saying is they could have talked about it, could have discussed it, could have made compromises

The reason nintendo's painted in a bad light is that instead of doing any of this they went behind sony's back and struck a deal with phillips even though Sony had already done a lot of r&d and work

for all you know sony was just haggling

Nintendo was the bad guy indeed, even though sony's not completely innocent.

If you partner up with me to use my engineering knowledge to design you a product and I put in my time and work I hope you don't back out at the last minute over a few details instead of working them out and go behind my back and hire somebody else even though we're almost done. I'd be royally fucking pissed.

And with good reason, that was a major dick move.

>>480341
>http://www.saturnleague.com/
Oh man. Looks like these guys are looking to bring back Xband.

>this thread

just makes me wish for another sega console, man.

>>482018
With today's Sega? Much of their talent base has left. I'm content with memories.

>>482027

Sega is still good. The only people who don't think so exclusively play Sonic games.

Prove me wrong.

>>479541
How come everybody knows this story, but nobody knows about the time Atari almost became the distributor for the NES in America?

Following the success in Japan with its famicom, Nintendo soon turned its attention to the North American market. Nintendo entered into negotiations with Atari to release the Famicom under Atari’s name as the name Nintendo Advanced Video Gaming System. The deal was set to be finalized and signed at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show in June 1983. But, at that show, Atari discovered that Coleco, one of Atari's competitors, was (without nintendo's permission) demonstrating their Coleco Adam computer with Donkey Kong, a popular Nintendo game that had been licensed for Atari consoles, in violation of Atari's exclusive right to publish the game for computer systems. So the signing was delayed. Atari's CEO Ray Kassar was fired the next month, so the deal went nowhere, and Nintendo decided to market its system on its own.

So what if Atari had distributed the NES and its games?

Maybe it wouldn't have gone downhill like it did?

>>482042
You're wrong because you think Sanic is still bad.

>>482042

Sonic Racing: Transformed and Sonic Generations were amazing games though, but that's off topic.

This thread is really cool, I'm glad I could see the Pluto.

>>482090

it is

>>482089

I believe the actual plan was to buy the rights for Nintendo console, sit on them and release the next Atari console after the "opponent" was neutralized.

So yeah, they had rather evil intentions.

>>482089
>Following the success in Japan with its famicom

Actually the Famicom was just hitting Japanese store shelves in the summer of 83 and in fact experienced a nasty recall before it achieved any sales impact.

>>480181
I think they mean a "waifu", not "wife".

>>482882
I think he really means wife in this particular situation

>>482042
>Shining Force Exa, Shining Force Neo, Shining Hearts

Your move bread man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaRXP4TgBmg

Here's the other console, the guy just found out thanks to these news there was only 2 Plutos in the world. He bought it for $1 at a flea market
Lucky bastard

Man, I guess I consider myself a "collector" but I really don't have anything special. Kinda considering just plunking down the cash for a Famicom AV or something.