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Post by spenoza on Sept 30, 2022 15:59:47 GMT
Herein is where I admit I do not understand the PC-FX in the least. Given when it was released to market, I cannot see it had any chance of success. The only thing it seems to offer that other systems of the time might have had any trouble at all matching is its comfortable handling of FMV. Everything else about the system seems thoroughly behind every other market contender. I can't fathom what NEC thought it was going to do to make this thing marketable. I just can't make sense of the system at all.
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Post by dshadoff on Sept 30, 2022 17:10:40 GMT
In mid-1994, as releases were being planned for these machines, none of this was obvious whatsoever... Of course, it all seems obvious today... but it's almost 30 years after the fact right now.
Remember that Saturn, PC-FX and Playstation were all released within a month of each other, and all had multi-year development schedules, and were all worked on by teams who were trying to keep secrets from each other. Even if they were fully-aware of the competition's capabilities and their own insufficiencies (which I don't think can be assumed), they would be obligated to carry through with the release and try to market based on their relative merits.
It is post-release that Sony realized that they had a technology advantage with their 3D, and chose to aggressively push that this was "the future of gaming", because it was an area where the others couldn't compete.
In a sense, there was also an aspect of which of the three companies had the deepest pockets for marketing/advertising (hint: Sony), which was also effective because of the receptivity of their target demographic to advertising in general.
In summary, it's all crystal-clear after the fact - indeed, even only a short time after the fact - but you can't make the assumption that the console creators knew - back in 1992, 1993, and throughout 1994 - what we all know now.
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Post by spenoza on Sept 30, 2022 17:52:49 GMT
That is valuable perspective, but I think we shouldn't assume that just because hindsight is 20-20 that the project designers then were somehow oblivious to possible futures. FMV titles had been around a while, and though lackluster video quality on 16-bit consoles and early set-top-boxes likely didn't help, FMV titles weren't exactly taking the market by storm. Looking at what genres were most popular, FMV wasn't exactly at the top of the list. Weak audio capabilities compared to the competition and an insistence on trying to salvage hardware designs already 2 years old was not a winning proposition. I have the feeling that the PC-FX was, even at time of release, a case of crossed fingers, quiet prayers, and hoping against hope for a Hail Mary (my fingers repeatedly tried to type Fail Mary, which is indeed what happened).
I think there's technology to respect in this thing, but it was paired with some perplexing decisions. What I see is a corporation determined that failing badly was a better option than doing nothing at all. I also see a lot of sunk costs fallacy at work.
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Post by dshadoff on Sept 30, 2022 18:00:01 GMT
I think you'd need to corroborate those speculations by interviewing an actual participant. My assumptions of lack of information are based on how tight-lipped most Japanese companies are, but it is a fair statement that some information could leak via third parties. Yet, even if real information leaked, it could also be treated with suspicion until seen with one's own eyes. All speculation until we hear it from an actual participant for confirmation of one of the theories.
In any case, anybody who has worked in a company of a certain size will know that after a certain amount of sunk costs have been put in, the project must still be completed regardless of consequences. There really isn't any option for people to just decide to leave, particularly in Japan's "job for life" (at least at that time) corporate culture.
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Post by spenoza on Sept 30, 2022 18:31:59 GMT
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Post by dshadoff on Sept 30, 2022 20:46:02 GMT
Like so many articles in the west about the PC-FX, there are a lot of things stated as fact without any source (as you called out), and it really just pushes the same storyline already sketched out by so many people in the West who never read Japanese source material.
I find a lot of the statements in that article to be implausible (the spooled video, the cancellation of the project "because they saw specs of the competitions' machines", etc.)... which leads me to doubt every aspect of the article.
I'd really like to hear it from somebody who was part of the team, not somebody who wasn't even in the country at the time.
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Post by spenoza on Sept 30, 2022 20:50:10 GMT
Thing is, that author may indeed have sources. They may have looked to Japanese interviews or talked to insiders. But we just don't know.
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Post by filler on Oct 1, 2022 3:09:39 GMT
I've thought about this a lot myself. I fully agree with David. It's easy to look back and say "this doesn't make sense", but it's different when you're in the moment. Additionally, the fact that we're looking at this from a western perspective adds to the confusion. I don't think it's that hard to see how NEC and Hudson were building on the trajectory of the PC Engine, and possibly more so the PC-98. The mid nineties were PEAK anime boom, and both the PCECD and PC-98 had large well supported libraries of adventure games and RPGs. Coming out of the 16-bit era, the idea of leveraging CD media for even better cut-scenes and audio/video while targeting an audience entering their teens and 20s immersed in nerd culture is not so ill-conceived.
The PC-FX release of Der Langrisser FX was an enhanced port of Langrisser II originally released on the Super Famicom. It featured full voice, beautiful graphics, and FMV cutscenes well beyond anything capable on the Super Famicom or PC Engine CD. The adventure game ports from PC-98 like Ah! Megami-sama, Welcome to Pia Carrot, and Dokyuusei II were similarly enhanced, and stand as definitive versions in many respects. Games ported to the PlayStation like Boundary Gate fit right in with the other 2D stuff happening on that system. Not to mention the PC-FX was a haven for the very earliest otome games, with Koei releasing a whopping 4 titles in the Angelique series on the system.
Part of the problem is that western gamers have almost no information on the actual games available on the system, and the library leans into games/genres that traditionally do not appeal directly to western audiences, especially in the console space. Power Dolls and Dragon Knight both had games from their respective series released on PC in the west, but they didn't exactly set the gaming scene on fire. One could argue that the library didn't do the system any favors in Japan either, but it's not nearly as "far out" as western gamers seem to think it is.
I also get the impression that the system was something of a passing-of-the-torch to the next gen of devs and talent. There were clearly some passionate folks in HuneX who went on to keep working on releases for Dreamcast, PSX etc. but still made the occasional reference to the PC-FX. Folks like Takeuchi Kouta who wrote scenarios for several PC-FX adventure games have had a decades spanning career working on titles like Da Capo and SHUFFLE!.
A refrain I hear is that the PC-FX had "only one shooter!". I'd urge anyone to stop and think for a moment whether hinging the success of your new 2D system on SHMUPs in 1994 truly sounds like good business sense. The PCE had a ton of shooters, but that's because the system came from the 80s when those games were fresh. The FX certainly could have used another shooter or two, but you would not have targeted the SHMUP crowd in 1994 to sell your new system. The launch titles were a somewhat technically impressive Resident Evil style adventure game (predating RE by a year) with the significant musical talent of Kenji Kawai handling the soundtrack, a cinematic style 2D fighter using only FMV with character designs by Junichi Hayama, the animation director for Fist of the North Star, and a raising simulation which is a direct sequel to a PCECD game. It's clear what they were aiming for with this console release, and the fact that it didn't work out in the end is not really an indictment of the approach they decided to take, or the developers making games for the system.
FYI: Ben Yoder and I speak about these topics in a PC-FX specific podcast which we are planning to continue if you'd like to hear more of our perspectives. I've made a thread about them on this forum.
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Post by dshadoff on Oct 1, 2022 12:14:48 GMT
FYI: Ben Yoder and I speak about these topics in a PC-FX specific podcast which we are planning to continue if you'd like to hear more of our perspectives. I've made a thread about them on this forum. Would love to see this continue ! And related to spenoza's comment about the author possibly having sources... sure, it's possible, and that may support individual statements from the article, but I still wouldn't believe all of all of them unless there were multiple sources. There's just too much to break down in there. There was so little communication between Japan and the west in the 90's, that people speculated *A LOT* about what was going on, and most of it was proven false over time for most consoles. There has continued to be so little information available about the PC-FX, that many of those 90s speculations have persisted and become embedded into the "lore" of the PC-FX even though they aren't true (or are at best an oversimplification). So few people in the west have actually owned a system or played ANY games, that I really have to question "who is this person - are they even qualified to write on this subject ?" for anybody who decides to write an article about the PC-FX in the west. And even extracting from articles written in Japanese from the time period can be suspicious depending on who wrote and published them: Many of the magazines in Japan were shining beacons of journalistic integrity and objectivity, just as much as they were here (ahem: this means "not at all").
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Post by filler on Oct 1, 2022 23:08:12 GMT
Would love to see this continue ! Glad to hear it. Actually, we'd love to have you on sometime if you're interested. Is there anything in particular you'd like to talk about? We're planning a fairly sparse schedule so it might be a while, but I'd like to try to get some folks on with us who've been in the community. There was so little communication between Japan and the west in the 90's, that people speculated *A LOT* about what was going on, and most of it was proven false over time for most consoles. There has continued to be so little information available about the PC-FX, that many of those 90s speculations have persisted and become embedded into the "lore" of the PC-FX even though they aren't true (or are at best an oversimplification). That's one of the loopholes I'd like to close. Setting aside the quality of the original sources, I'm planning to translate more information about the PC-FX from Japanese magazines (your PC Engine Fan magazines in particular) and other sources. I feel like that material has been missing for too long, and might clarify the accuracy of long held speculations.
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Post by dshadoff on Oct 2, 2022 1:05:38 GMT
Glad to hear it. Actually, we'd love to have you on sometime if you're interested. Is there anything in particular you'd like to talk about? We're planning a fairly sparse schedule so it might be a while, but I'd like to try to get some folks on with us who've been in the community. Sure, I could join in at some point. Not sure if I've got much to say that's PC-FX specific (yet) though. Preservation is a big theme for me - lately including making sure that the original hardware is understood and properly emulated (we are still finding out new things, 30 years later), and bringing rare peripherals to a broader audience by figuring out how to re-implement them with modern technology. (I'm sure there's more too...) That's certainly a step up from what the west is familiar with. Keeping in mind that the magazines were basically marketing avenues, so you know that you won't see the full picture. There are marketing "puff pieces", and developer interviews that don't stray too much from a planned storyline... but the developer interviews are probably where several of the "tall tale" stories originate from, and getting them in a less-corrupted form would be useful.
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Post by filler on Oct 2, 2022 6:23:55 GMT
Sure, I could join in at some point. Not sure if I've got much to say that's PC-FX specific (yet) though. Preservation is a big theme for me - lately including making sure that the original hardware is understood and properly emulated (we are still finding out new things, 30 years later), and bringing rare peripherals to a broader audience by figuring out how to re-implement them with modern technology. (I'm sure there's more too...) Cool! I think it will be fun to chat. Like I said, it might be a while but we'll reach out when the time comes.
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Post by SignOfZeta on Oct 3, 2022 11:54:28 GMT
The reason you can’t make sense of the FX is that it makes no sense. That’s also the reason it flopped horribly and was on clearance quickly.
Look…if you look at a PCE magazine from around 94 or so you’ll see a lot of coverage and fan interest in Graduation, Tokimeki and other…chick sims that look like interactive wedding invitations, basically. Lots of white. The Duo R and R/X are advertised full on the back, also very white. The things we associate with PCE like Splatterhouse and Bonk were pretty much forgotten. It was all panties and pagodas in 93-95.
And in this world they drop the FX. It’s also all pretty and white and plays those same kinds of games…upgraded PC games, much of the time.
I think by this time Hudson had decided to check out. NEC probably decided to let a million year old man who knows nothing about games green light the safest projects possible for that year. Investing in FMV and NOTHING ELSE could make for an good Yuna 3…if only Yuna hadn’t ended up on Saturn along with Willy Wombat, Bomberman, etc. They make a system to play the games that were popular that minute in Japan only. Hudson, having access to all the documentation could see what every other dev saw and barely did anything for it at all.
It was a huge screwup. To me it’s silly to be kind to the guys that make the screwup. If they are still living they have accepted reality now too. The system for sure sucks because the library sucks and that’s what makes a system suck. However the devs didn’t even want to make games for it, not even Hudson, because the system was so bad it drove them to other machines from day one.
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Post by turboxray on Oct 17, 2022 19:49:00 GMT
Herein is where I admit I do not understand the PC-FX in the least. Given when it was released to market, I cannot see it had any chance of success. The only thing it seems to offer that other systems of the time might have had any trouble at all matching is its comfortable handling of FMV. Everything else about the system seems thoroughly behind every other market contender. I can't fathom what NEC thought it was going to do to make this thing marketable. I just can't make sense of the system at all. I agree about the part of being severely behind, tech-wise. The decisions of the PC-FX has nothing to do with the Sony or Sega keeping their technology secret or such. There was no secret about how tech was evolving - especially those in the business of creating said technology. It was very clear where game system tech-design was heading at the time. Raster base system were reaching their limits, and blitter based systems were the solution to overcome a lot of problems at the time; the more affordable amount of ram and speed of ram made such blitter rendering possible and realizable - with obvious benefits. 3D or just 2D, the PCFX inclusion of two PCE video chips over using a simple blitter system makes zero sense for the time. I'm convinced this was a last minute 'bolt on' fix to something they had issue with... because I don't want to believe that someone thought this was actually a good idea hahah. And in relation to the PS, Saturn, 3DO, and even the Jag - the PCFX's 2D sprites prowess is basically just a 16bit system at best - all sprites are raster based and weak for the time - doesn't even match the sprite capability of arcade systems from 1987, let alone what was coming to the market in 1993-94. The only thing that really differentiates itself from say the Super famicom, is that it has more flexible BG equivalent (modes) and more of them. It's basically an extended Super Famicom with FMV, which is odd for something that's supposed to be 'next gen'. That is a VERY odd decision for 1993-1994. I'd say NEC completely miss-understood both the market and technology. The PCFX might have a 32bit processor, but I consider it as 16bit design. Not even a 'hybrid' generation system. And this isn't a, "Well.. it's a Japanese system for a Japanese audience". So was the Saturn and Play Station, Neo Geo, Sharp 68k, etc. I think the audio chip is probably the most egregiously insulting part, or the most telling - that they had given up and/or didn't know what they were doing. FM chips were cheap by then. Seriously, WTF NEC hahah. W..T..F... The whole argument "Its more about software than hardware..." falls completely on its face though; no amount of software is going to overcome this glaring deficiencies in hardware. I'm surprised they got any dev softs on it at all, all things considering. The only reason it even gets mentioned is the FMV. Or more preciously, the Saturn had poor FMV quality out of the gate making the PCFX FMV shine. But compared to the Play Station, the PCFX FMV is not that impressive. There really is no way to put a positive spin on the PCFX.. at all.. or justify the final hardware deficiencies. The only thing that could have potentially made sense, is if it was released as a budget system for like $200 (which was not going to happen). Don't get me wrong, I find the system fascinating and I'm glad it exists - and would love to write some stuff for it. But along the same lines of the 32x, nowadays I don't what care that it failed to succeeded. But back in the day, the PCFX design choices must has baffled a lot of game developers.
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Post by SignOfZeta on Oct 18, 2022 15:34:36 GMT
“It’s a Japanese system for a Japanese audience…”, yeah, I agree that doesn’t make any sense because:
a) why would you do that? Almost every game machine worth a broke dink had a world-wide release. Japan has very loyal customers but…not that many. This choice alone doomed them. Can you imagine the PlayStation being Japan only? There wouldn’t be a PS5 if they had gone that route.
b) it failed miserably in Japan! So even if doily clad high school romance combined with uncensored dungeon sex was your only plan it STILL flopped. They were afraid of a broad market so they went laser focused on the one market they thought they understood…and bit it harder than ever before.
I think the reason some people can’t accept the FC-FX as it is, a megaflop of mega bad moves, is because aside from the SGX there isn’t another thing like it. It’s like finding the first quasar or marsupial…you assume there must be an explanation or some info you are missing because it just doesn’t make any sense.
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