/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.5004565]

Manufacturing costs aside, was the transition to optical media a necessary technical step for gaming? Did it really change or add to gameplay in ways that cartridges otherwise couldn’t? Was it just an excuse to “Hollywoodize” games with cinematic cutscenes and voice acting?

[Anonymous No.5004569]

On console, it was just a way to stuff voice acting and cutscenes into games. The N64 has the same type of games as the Playstation does.

On PC, it was huge, since the prior format wasn't cartridges, but 3.5 floppies, which hold much less than a cartridge.

When DVDs came out though, PS2 era, disks were necessary, since cartridge/card storage wasn't keeping up at the time.

[Anonymous No.5004576]

>>5004569
you forgot cost. cartridges were several times more expensive at the time for a fraction of the allotted space.

RE2 was 512Mb. you better be sure that put a dent in Capcom's revenues.

[Anonymous No.5004585]

>>5004569
>When DVDs came out though, PS2 era, disks were necessary, since cartridge/card storage wasn't keeping up at the time.

Would they have needed to keep up with DVDs if games didn't have FMVs and recorded audio?

[Anonymous No.5004589]

>>5004585
maybe, but that was a huge deal back then. a PSX game's worth was measured by how pretty the cutscenes looked.

[Anonymous No.5004597]

>>5004576
>RE2 was 512Mb. you better be sure that put a dent in Capcom's revenues.

RE2 was a major exception, since Capcom decided to adapt an explicitly CD-native game spread out across two discs -- full of FMVs, voice acting, and prerendered backgrounds -- to a format that was explicitly designed around realtime 3D graphics and minimal pre-recorded material.

[Anonymous No.5004598]

>>5004565

It was necessary. It lowered the cost of games, provided more storage for a medium that was always strapped for that storage space, and allowed for multiple discs in situations where it's acceptable, like MGS's side missions. The loss of upgrade chips in the cart wasn't very important, as evidenced by the fact that the N64 avoided those. The fact that arcades and PC were also moving to optical is compelling evidence of important trends.

>>5004585

Yes, that was the GTA3 generation and virtually all games were moving to include its style of gameplay by 2005. You cannot accomplish that with multi-disc games.

[Anonymous No.5004628]

I would argue that the switch from cartridges to cds allowed for shovelware to be produced even more than before

[Anonymous No.5004647]

>>5004585
Define recorded audio? Even high quality music and sound effects take up space. Games were getting larger, and that all needs to be textured, too. PC games started coming on 5 CDs, which is ridiculous. Yes, a lot of that was lazy compression and fmv, but still, games got too big for CD.

[Anonymous No.5004731]

>>5004628

That might be true, but fifth gen was full of shovelware for multiple reasons. The majority of the N64 library was stupid shovelware like Toy Story and Superman.

[Anonymous No.5004748]

>>5004647
“Recorded audio” is exactly what it means. Up until the fifth generation, game soundtracks were mostly generated on the hardware via programming, with the occasional PCM sample.

[Anonymous No.5005387]

>>5004628
Not really, the Atari 2600 was ripe with shitty games. If we go by the idea of "shovelware" being those multi-cart games, China's still going strong with their Famicom pirate carts. Some of it can be blamed on licensing, but the ability to not have to worry about cart licenses is a double-edged sword of quality control. Either you get Extra Shit with Action 52, or you get Tengen Tetris, & Activision had their own unique carts for the 2600 with decent games like Keystone Kapers.

[Anonymous No.5005416]

>>5004565
You can't say "manufacturing costs aside", manufacturing costs are an inherent part of it. If you put manufacturing costs aside you could produce carts with CD storage that cost $600. If you're asking could they have ran the 6th, 7th and 8th generation with carts, SD cards or hard drives... probably, but they would have started pushing to SD or hard drives fast. If you're asking carts alone at regular prices the way they were up to the N64... it could be done, but you'd lose all the FMV and substantial details in the surroundings. Other things like AI shouldn't take up much code at all since humans have to actually write out that code - though this might change with google's "deep learning" stuff where AI is supposed to teach itself or something like that.

>>5004731
>and Superman
Superman 64 is what the majority of N64 titles are like? The fact that you resort to putting the literal most notorious bad game of all time as the only example you can think of for a second title suggests to me you don't know what you're talking about. Loading a few up on ED64 doesn't count. With only something like 300 titles, I don't specifically know off the top of my head but there's no way you could be right that most are "shovelware" so I'd challenge that claim.

[Anonymous No.5005430]

>>5005416
As a follow up I searched for the worst N64 games and here is the first list I came by and they have games that obviously aren't very bad games - Hexen, War Gods, Earthworm Jim 3D, WCW Nitro lol.

https://www.thegamer.com/the-25-worst-games-on-the-nintendo-64/

[Anonymous No.5005462]

>>5004565
Discs could hold a lot more data and cost a lot less. So you could get multi disc games for $50, while a cart version would have cost up to $80 or more, to accomodate the extra required storage. Or, had a multi cart game been attempted, prices would have skyrocketed insanely.
Discs, in this way, allowed standardized pricing to become a thing, while carts prices varied a lot more, and forced some games to be shorter or simplified from one platform to the next. (Like the n64 version of MK4 missing an ending, and all endings having to be in-engine)

Discs also had better sound quality, and in many cases, the game disc doubled as a soundtrack disc.

Lastly, yes, they more easily allowed for things like FMVs and such, but in the long run, most games had them in the beginning and end and a few short ones dabbed here and there. So they weren't all as intrusive as they're made out to be. Most being skippable, and all.

That said, discs had worse loading times, and could be damaged a lot more easily. Not to mention being more succeptible to extreme temperatures and the dreaded disc rot (which only honestly effects discs stored in extremely poor conditions)

So it all boils down to what you're looking for in your physical media. I like discs just fine, but have no problem with carts either.

[Anonymous No.5005470]

>>5005430
Those were also listed at the bottom of the worse by 20 it got shitty fast. But that us taking some random fag you googled up as an expert on the subject so why even bring this shit here?

[Anonymous No.5006097]

>>5004565
>necessary
No. We could all just be playing b&w pong online multiplayer today.

[Anonymous No.5006527]

>was the transition to optical media a necessary technical step for gaming?
If you mean it led to how gaming is today, yes, because optical media paved the way for digitally downloaded games. If you mean gaming could not have evolved and would be stuck with N64 level technology, then no.

>Did it really change or add to gameplay in ways that cartridges otherwise couldn’t?
Cartridges are an expansion mechanism and discs are just data storage, so it did change something. Cartridges can have coprocessors, mappers, cameras, extra RAM expansions, battery-backed save memory, other consoles (e.g. Super Game Boy), motion sensors, and other devices inside. None of these things could be downloaded because they were physical enhancements to the hardware.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Super_NES_enhancement_chips
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/top10/2745-the-top-10-nintendo-gameboy-generation-cartridges-with-built

Another advantage is speed. On some consoles, code is executed directly off the cartridge without having to copy it into memory. A lot of games on today's consoles have to be installed to a hard drive because discs are so slow, and those games still have load times. Since these consoles have hard drives, it became possible to download DLC which would have previously needed a pass-through cartridge like Sonic & Knuckles. Then companies realized that there is no difference between installing from a disc and installing from a download. If we still used cartridges, console games would primarily exist only in a physical format.

[Anonymous No.5008705]

>>5004565
NO.. LOL.. The answer is very obvious...

The pixelated FMVs, cut-scenes and "CD Quality" audio tracks were only an "added "benifit".

This is the true answer: Cartridges relied on pcb and chip technology.. They were full of chips and depended on the technology involved.. Technology is money.. Millions and millions of dollars of time, knowledge and research..

CD-rom tech made its way into gaming because it was a break-through technology that had been developed in the recent past for audio and could easily be used for data..

They skipped the cost of all these chips which cost a fuck-ton to develope and push.. to continue to push the tech further...

Back then, and still now, this type of chip technology was expensive as fuck because it relies on physical logistics (all those electronic components are precisesly engineered and manufactured).. Just take a look at the physical make-up of most electronic componenets.. They are very intricate and involve a lot of refined metal, wires and circuitry (all confined to a very tight space.. like a capacitor)..

To manufacture this shit is expensive and limiting..

CD-rom technology took a lot of the logistics of that out.. especially how it interacted with the software...

Thats why you hears about 1st gen cd systems like PS and saturn having so many chips on the system end.. it was because the system had to make up for a lot of the routines and legacy support for those routines on the chip end...

[Anonymous No.5008742]

>>5004748
FM audio and even sampled audio has severe limits. In order to even approach the quality of, say, redbook, you'd need thousands of dollars of hardware just for audio synthesis, or have a sample bank developers would still need to include on the disc.

The reality is that "recorded" audio is superior.

[Anonymous No.5008807]

>>5004565
>Did it really change or add to gameplay in ways that cartridges otherwise couldn’t?
In the beginning, the inclusion of high quality audio was welcome. Sonic CD amazed the hell out of me for its time. Its a great addition to the series. Earthworm Jim & Final fight are possibly the best on sega CD.

PSX owned the next generation. The mix of data and music really made best use of what seems like a joke for hardware now. Gran tourismo 2 was totally impossible on a cart in that quality of audio. Game play and IQ? Possibly with work. Resident Evil 2 for PSX was outstanding.....Resident evil N64 is a modern marvel in programming. Starcraft 64 as well.

The problem was the 3rd party didn't give a fuck about goofy N64, and made games for the title seller...the PSX. Good ports were hard to come by, and 1st and 2nd party kept N64 alive in a niche market. Nintendo always has been that way. If N64 had a 2.5d Metroid, I think discussions would be a bit more positive to the N64....I think it would have been something that could have compared to Castlevania SoTN.

[Anonymous No.5008851]

>>5004565
And it still is. You can see it on the switch where the games are more expensive due do cartridges and some publishers even said that getting their games fit a 16gig cartridge was the hardest part of the porting since they are not going to pay more for the 32 ones.

[Anonymous No.5011179]

>>5005430
War Gods is infamous at being shit.

[Anonymous No.5012098]

larger size, the ability to have video, higher quality audio, voice acting, etc