[HN Gopher] It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Super Cassette Vision
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       It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Super Cassette Vision
        
       Author : zdw
       Score  : 100 points
       Date   : 2024-11-25 02:50 UTC (20 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (nicole.express)
 (TXT) w3m dump (nicole.express)
        
       | zdw wrote:
       | If you're interested in the whole game catalog available from the
       | Super Cassette Vision, the RndStranger youtube channel plays a
       | bit of every game on the system in chronological release order:
       | https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1sb8k4ZPagbvyrcU13KR...
        
       | wingi wrote:
       | You should mention that you mean the japan console market, not
       | US.
       | 
       | In 1983 the US console market collapsed because of the many low-
       | quality atari games and not-licenced consoles.
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983
       | 
       | The NES was released in US test markets as the redesigned NES in
       | October 1985.
        
         | zetx wrote:
         | "Epoch went from dominating the cartridge-based game market in
         | Japan to a distant third practically overnight." is the third
         | sentence.
        
       | ndiddy wrote:
       | There's a somewhat active Super Cassette Vision homebrew scene in
       | Japan that's been able to achieve pretty impressive results with
       | the machine's unorthodox graphics hardware. The best looking ones
       | are probably the ports of ChoRenSha68k (
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1wDLOa_4H4 ) and Space Harrier (
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD9iHAbbzIQ ), and they've also
       | done ports of Super Mario Bros. (
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MudYEDUK3Nw ) and Dragon Quest (
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iisV8xHCB-w ). Of course, the NES
       | ports kind of expose the weakness of being forced to use sprites
       | for scrolling backgrounds, as there's not enough to fill the
       | screen if you want a color background. As a result, Super Mario
       | Bros. only has 1 color backgrounds and Dragon Quest isn't
       | fullscreen.
        
         | classichasclass wrote:
         | The Space Harrier port is fun. The music would have been better
         | eliminated entirely but the massive number of sprites makes it
         | no worse graphically than, say, the C64 port. I particularly
         | liked the parallax scrolling in ChoRenSha68K. They really seem
         | to know to play to the video hardware's strengths.
        
       | doublerabbit wrote:
       | The era of time when game consoles were plentiful even if naff
       | are now of rehashed Xboxes, PlayStations and Nintendo; which by
       | the glory is now graphics.
       | 
       | It's sad that to even think of competing in the console race is
       | now near impossible.
       | 
       | As the next consoles generations being AI with AI generated
       | graphics, where's the fun in that?
       | 
       | Going digital has made everything cold and sterile. The same is
       | true with mobile devices.
        
         | garciansmith wrote:
         | You don't have to stick to AAA games for the big consoles
         | though. Tons of fun indie games out there for any platform. And
         | there's even niche hardware these days like the Playdate, a
         | system that is the opposite of cold and sterile!
        
           | doublerabbit wrote:
           | Yes, you're not wrong. It's just not the same and unsure how
           | to explain it. Consoles had love, warmth and now they're cold
           | and sterile as I said before. They were a lifetime purchase
           | and now you're expected to buy each new revision.
           | 
           | It was different and you felt it. As the old internet to the
           | new internet. Something the new generations won't understand.
           | 
           | Consoles have always been about the games. It was the
           | dedicated hardware for. So my gripe is not that it can't do
           | what a PC can do. I own a PC for that.
           | 
           | Games were creative, imaginative and this was before "AAA"
           | was a thing.
           | 
           | There is no magic to be found.
           | 
           | I find more enjoyment playing old DOS and Amiga games. Which
           | luckily there are sites for that.
           | 
           | The playdate is a thing and true but it's a device i've not
           | used but know I'll use once and put down. It's not in the
           | shops where I can try before I buy.
           | 
           | Indie games are cute. However what I find with indie games,
           | which I own more than a dozen on my steam list are fun for
           | the while and then never get touched. Not my thing.
           | 
           | It's not about the game play, it's about the hardware.
        
             | garciansmith wrote:
             | I don't know if I'd describe the difference as "love" or
             | "warmth." But older consoles' design decisions were
             | definitely more varied and developers had to tailor to
             | those limitations and features. Sure, now the Switch has
             | less power than a PS5 and is portable, but that doesn't
             | matter much when it comes to game development unless you
             | need to push graphical boundaries. Very different than old
             | systems with unique input methods, controllers,
             | capabilities, etc. As you said, hardware used to matter.
             | Which is why I find the Playdate a neat system.
             | 
             | Large expensive games need to appeal to the lowest common
             | denominator and feel like they are designed by committee,
             | much more so than they used to due to the huge increase in
             | development costs. But I'm happy with the variety in the
             | indie scene, which includes games that hearken back to
             | older games (e.g, Ringlorn Saga, which takes old Japanese
             | computer RPGs as its inspiration), and games that provide
             | totally new experiences with plenty of creativity. Plus
             | there are niche games that would have never sold back in
             | the 1980s and 1990s (e.g., ones with more serious emotional
             | or more adult themes).
             | 
             | Despite that, games tend to follow design trends, so it
             | certainly makes sense that you might just prefer games made
             | during a particular era. I love exploring older games too
             | (I've spent way too much time messing around with old
             | consoles on my MiSTer), but I still find plenty of
             | interesting new experiences as well.
        
         | toast0 wrote:
         | > Going digital has made everything cold and sterile. The same
         | is true with mobile devices.
         | 
         | I don't think it's that things are digital, or digital
         | distribution. IMHO, it's the consolidation of design without
         | major limitations or character. XBox and Playstation are AMD
         | based PCs with a weird OS, and have been for at least two
         | generations. They don't have a "look", because 3d rendering is
         | pretty reasonable now, and everything kind of looks the same;
         | newer generations look better, but draw rates are plenty high,
         | so things don't have to look a certain way to be playable. They
         | don't have a "sound", because there's so much storage and most
         | of the sound is mixed from (high quality) pre-recorded pieces.
        
       | rsynnott wrote:
       | But... Why was it called a super cassette vision? It seems to
       | have used rom cartridges like everyone else.
       | 
       | EDIT:
       | 
       | > The term cassette is a contemporary Japanese synonym for ROM
       | cartridge, not to be confused with the magnetic cassette tape
       | format.
       | 
       | Ah, well, that's not at all confusing.
        
         | wileydragonfly wrote:
         | Lot of people in the US called them tapes or cassettes, too.
         | Usually the older people that also called them Entendos.
         | Probably just to irritate the children, in hindsight.
        
         | stonogo wrote:
         | Lingo of the era was "cassette tape" -- and for a while there
         | "cassette" by itself could mean anything packaged in a small
         | case. "Cartridge" in my youth far more often referred to
         | ammunition than a video game or computer ROM.
        
         | munificent wrote:
         | "Cassette" is just appending the French dimunitive "ette" to
         | "casse", which means "case". So "cassette" just refers to
         | something being in a little box. The word itself has nothing to
         | do with there being tape inside.
         | 
         | In English, the word became strongly associated with cassette
         | tapes because it wasn't widely used before those came around,
         | but the word itself is much older and more general.
        
           | hartmel wrote:
           | I ll add that the usage "cassette" refers usually to a tape
           | in a plastic case, like the VHS cassette, the audio cassette.
           | 
           | The words referred to a box where coins where stored. It s
           | probably still used in banks, like when ATMs are refilled.
           | 
           | Surprisingly for "LTO tape", french mostly uses the literal
           | translation of "LTO tape" and sometimes "LTO cartridge" too ;
           | the use of "cassette" is uncommon.
           | 
           | I just discovered it's the word for a bicycle component too.
           | 
           | There is the word "caissette" too, which is a box, small but
           | not necessarily extra small as the "ette" prefix usually
           | suggests in french though. I guess it depends of the context.
           | ("Caisse" == "box")
           | 
           | There is yet another word for small boxes made of wood
           | usually used for vegetables and fruits: "cagette".
           | 
           | "Casse" exists too with another meaning : it s a vehicle
           | graveyard. (It comes from the translation of "to break" wich
           | is the verb "casser").
        
         | Lammy wrote:
         | Nintendo also used this term. Peep the Famicom system manual
         | where the cartridge connector is straight-up labeled in English
         | as [CASSETTE CONNECTOR] with katakana furigana (kasetsuto /
         | kasetto):
         | https://ia601903.us.archive.org/17/items/Family_Computer_198...
        
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       (page generated 2024-11-25 23:00 UTC)