How would it be possible for 8-bit machines to successfully emulate a game that used twin 68000 cpus and custom sprite scaling hardware? these conversions were just a marketing gimmick, targeting the wallets of the poor consumers.
It was amazing back then to me how bad were home computers relative to arcade machines back then. It was also amazing to me that no home computer manufacturer ever had a plan for a serious gaming home computer system that matched (or came close to) the arcades in visual quality.
Who wouldn't try to buy a machine that could play, for example, Outrun, close to the arcade? even if it cost 1000 dollars...
It was also amazing to me that no home computer manufacturer
ever had a plan for a serious gaming home computer system that
matched (or came close to) the arcades in visual quality.
Who wouldn't try to buy a machine that could play, for example,
Outrun, close to the arcade? even if it cost 1000 dollars...
There were serious heaps of silicon inside those arcade machines. No way they could have been (profitably) sold to home users for anything remotely resembling $1K.
Check out the arcade board for After Burner; essentially the same hardware as Outrun:
Gobs of RAM and custom silicon. Compare with any contemporary home computer of the era. No way these massive slabs of arcade silicon could have been produced and sold profitably for less than thousands of dollars.
There were other issues as well. These arcade boards were very power hungry and therefore put out lots of heat. Home consumers willing to put up with that would be a very small niche.
One company did just that in the early 90s -- SNK, with their Neo-Geo console. In fact, the meaningless-looking technobabble that appears on the system's boot screen ("MAX 330 MEGA PRO-GEAR SPEC") actually has a meaning: the system supports a maximum ROM size of 330 megabits (more with tricks like bank switching), and the console's hardware specifications are identical to those of the arcade-cabinet hardware (or "pro gear").
But the Neo-Geo and games for it were expensive -- well outside the price range of all but the most hardcore of game consumers -- and it took until the 90s to make the economics work.
>It was also amazing to me that no home computer manufacturer ever had a plan for a serious gaming home computer system that matched (or came close to) the arcades in visual quality.
Actually the X86000 from Sharp was pretty much this. It had perfect ports of arcade games and was also used as the development system by Capcom among other arcade companies.
Here is a funny story: I live in Athens, Greece. In 1987 (or it was later?), I read on the ACE magazine about the Sharp X68000...with magazine at hand, I went down to the local Sharp dealer to see if they will import the machine...they didn't know anything about it! when I showed them the magazine, they didn't believe me and they refused to pick up the phone and phone Japan!!!
The Sharp X68000 was a beast of machine, but it didn't have sprite scaling.
> It was amazing back then to me how bad were home computers relative to arcade machines back then. It was also amazing to me that no home computer manufacturer ever had a plan for a serious gaming home computer system that matched (or came close to) the arcades in visual quality.
The Amiga did come close-ish, but despite its custom chips, the lack of a custom sprite scaler and too low memory bandwidth would have likely made it impossible to get all that much closer (it's mainly lacking extra details next to the road). The dual 68k's on Outrun also ran on 12.5Mhz vs. ~8Mhz/7.16Mhz (depending on NTSC vs. PAL) for the Amiga's single M68k.
> Who wouldn't try to buy a machine that could play, for example, Outrun, close to the arcade? even if it cost 1000 dollars...
In effect the Amiga was the closest the market would bear - Commodore struggled on for years, and sold about 5m Amiga's, and the only reason they survived as long as they did was that Commodore were masters at cost-cutting (arguably that also sank them: they cut their R&D budgets to the bone, among many other mistakes). People who went from working at Apple to Commodore at the time have indicated that attempts at Apple to figure out how Commodore was able to sell the Amiga at the price-points they did for example massively over-estimated Commodores manufacturing costs and could not figure out how Commodore were able to squeeze out a margin at all.
As such we can assume the Amiga price, which including a monitor, joysticks etc. around the time of Outrun would easily ended up in the region of 1000 dollars or more, was the high point of what was commercially possible around the thousand dollar mark at the time.
Nah, the Amiga's Outrun was a silly Atari ST port. It didn't even come close to what the Amiga could do (e.g. Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge).
> In effect the Amiga was the closest the market would bear
Not at all. Commodore was a very shitty company that has no business plan, was engineer-unfriendly and by 1992 they have managed to alienate all their top engineering talent.
Those very clever engineers (RJ Michael, Jay Miner etc) could have easily designed chips that did sprite scaling and rotation along with blitting.
These people have developed the Amiga custom chips actually in 1982-1983. In 1989, I am sure they would be able to develop something much better.
And it could be a little pricey at first. Even at double the price or a normal Amiga, who wouldn't want to play 100% authentic coin-op conversions?
Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge also has exactly the same gap in graphics capability vs arcade Outrun. I thought the same as you and was about to pull it out as a better example, and while it's a clearly better game on the Amiga more graphical detail is isn't really it - put some videos of them side by side.
> Not at all. Commodore was a very shitty company that has no business plan, was engineer-unfriendly and by 1992 they have managed to alienate all their top engineering talent.
And yet, those things were in large part because they spent less per unit sold than pretty much any other company at the time. Their R&D was chronically underfunded, they squeezed suppliers, they squeezed distributors. Commodore survived as long as they did because despite being dysfunctional the one are that dysfunction worked was that they were able to produce their hardware at prices most of the competition thought was impossible.
> In 1989, I am sure they would be able to develop something much better.
Outrun came out in 1986.
> Even at double the price or a normal Amiga, who wouldn't want to play 100% authentic coin-op conversions?
Far fewer than bought Amiga's. It might have done OK, but not well. Others have pointed out the X68000, which did not sell well at all.
I played it a lot, but Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, even the 3rd one, is nowhere near arcade Outrun. It lacks a lot of blitted objects next to the road, and e.g. you'll notice the background graphics does not get filled in with additional details when you're going downhill (that part is actually quite disappointing, as it's something they could have done a lot better with some copper tricks).
> How would it be possible for 8-bit machines to successfully emulate a game that used twin 68000 cpus and custom sprite scaling hardware? these conversions were just a marketing gimmick, targeting the wallets of the poor consumers.
I think you misunderstand my point. I don't expect a perfect conversion of a much larger arcade game. These games sucked because they were crap games with the licence tied to them built to deadlines so US Gold could shovel them onto unsuspecting punters. Compare the unpolished turd that is the Outrun ZX Spectrum port to ZZKJ's Super Hang On port or Enduro Racer. That's what I'm talking about.
It was amazing back then to me how bad were home computers relative to arcade machines back then. It was also amazing to me that no home computer manufacturer ever had a plan for a serious gaming home computer system that matched (or came close to) the arcades in visual quality.
Who wouldn't try to buy a machine that could play, for example, Outrun, close to the arcade? even if it cost 1000 dollars...