Just because the Saturn was a badly designed platform (with some cool features like the VDP2 3d planes) with bad development tools does not mean that it is impossible to write great games for it. Just that it becomes more difficult.
Shenmue 3
- Thread starter SegaR&D
- Start date
Just because the Saturn was a badly designed platform (with some cool features like the VDP2 3d planes) with bad development tools does not mean that it is impossible to write great games for it. Just that it becomes more difficult.
rockaman
Regular
Backed the $60 option at the tail end of the Kickstarter, pretty excited 
Playing through Shenmue 1 right now, a very interesting game for a lot of reasons.
It makes me wish the Yakuza series had even more elements similar to Shenmue
A definite achievement to have such a game released in 1999/2000.
Playing through Shenmue 1 right now, a very interesting game for a lot of reasons.
It makes me wish the Yakuza series had even more elements similar to Shenmue
A definite achievement to have such a game released in 1999/2000.
There's no magic. I never said 400 mHz was realistic. You are reaching quite desperately now.
Faster than 200 mHz on (US and Euro) launch nodes is what happened though.
You're shitting up a Shenmue thread by creating fallacious arguments because you have an issue with Shenmue/Dreamcast fans.
This is where you try and disprove actual, documented reality by creating a stupidly impossible scenario and saying it's the same.
Actually, I don't think Sega should have necessarily pushed for higher than 200 mHz (even though it was possible). I don't think Sega should have made a dual SH4 unit either, as you do. As Yu Suzuki thought at the time, it would have been a mistake.
More than a decade after the DC died, and more than a year before he tried a S3 kickstarter, YS was asked off the cuff what his favourite console was.
He humbly answered that it was the DC, because he was so involved with it's development.
(He also didn't rate the Saturn hardware, but you can't accept that).
Anyway, following on from this, you attempt to character assassinate the father of Sega 3D hardware, and of much of 3D gaming, just as you did with Shenmue and DC fans.
If you want to carry this line of argument on, please create an appropriate thread and stop shitting up the Shenmue thread.
Exactly!
Saturn had some of the best games of the entire decade. I wish Shenmue had come out for Saturn simply because I would like to have seen what Yu Suzuki could squeeze out of the Saturn.
[A machine he knew better than most because he oversaw development of the SGL to help third parties with development for the complex-as-fuck Saturn. He literally wrote the introduction to the revamped SGL notes].
Backed the $60 option at the tail end of the Kickstarter, pretty excited
Playing through Shenmue 1 right now, a very interesting game for a lot of reasons.
It makes me wish the Yakuza series had even more elements similar to Shenmue
A definite achievement to have such a game released in 1999/2000.
God bless you, Son!
Hey, I backed the 60$ physical game too!rockaman said:
God bless you, Son!
Next Generation Print magazines, Gamefan, EGM and probably Gamepro during the time of the Japanese Saturn launch had all, if they had (but more specifically "Next Generation magazine") reported that sales of Sega Saturn, along with Virtua Fighter 1 port, as flawed as it was, was actually selling on a one to one ratio and numbers were of THAT time considered good, successful sales numbers.
If you study the Japanese Saturn's first three retail years alone, from November 1994 to November 1997, Sega had many variations of Virtua Fighter to capitalize on the phenomenon in the arcades. While the game was never 1:1 arcade perfect, in terms of gameplay it was helping the movement of gamers there.
Fighters Megamix was serving as a "training introductory tool" to help gamers become familiar with the upcoming or contemporary Virtua Fighter 3 which besides Yu Suzuki, the Virtua Fighter series and it's success in sales in arcades and Saturn is what helped inspire the idea to make the Virtua Fighter RPG which eventually became Shenmue.
Hayao Nakayama did give the SoA/SoE some freedom here and there but Saturn was "surprisingly" selling well enough for a new platform in Japan mainly because of the Virtua Fighter 2 phenomenon.
As far as "not listening" apparently Hayao Nakayama did "actually listen" when the whole 32X thing was being talked and approved even when Saturn was in development instead of just staying focused on the Saturn development and launch and more importantly the promotional work which in hindsight I have mentioned was a major flaw (besides SegaCD and 32X and surprise Saturn launch in N.A. and Europe) of not having an Official Sega print magazine (Sega Visions) giving coverage and information instead of the segmented and comparison information from the other print magazines which just did not help Sega's cause at all.
As far as exaggerated Saturn sales numbers, compared to what? Sony PlayStation 1 was doing well but Sega was gaining like they never had before with Master System and MegaDrive/Genesis...we all who care to know, know that.
And I never said Yu Suzuki's team wasn't involved...I stated Dreamcast was NOT the only hardware he was involved with.
Sega Saturn (along with MegaDrive/Genesis, Dreamcast/Katana and even the long lost meeting with Nvidia for Nv2) was overseen by Mr Hideki Sato, Sega's director and deputy general of research and development in hardware.
Badly designed in comparison to PlayStation 1 correct? that has been the swan song for maligning Sega's Saturn engineering choices.
In fact the VDP2 was the "additional processor" that was added during re-engineering it's design as the dual SH2 set up was there all along since inception.
I called out the posted fictitious "Yu Suzuki statements claiming Saturn was wrong" as stated by Function whom I have quoted and called out on said false statements.
Being the difficult platform to dev for, Saturn game production ramped up...but again please note the Japanese game lineup as the outside Japan lineup suffered from in part, Bernie Stolar blocking many Japanese games being localized.
Also note that Capcom is and was a third party and they developed Final Fight Forever fighting game that required the 4MB expansion ram cart in Japan only.
Making games even on easy to dev form platforms is still not "easy" but Saturn despite being "difficult or hard" did not mean it was preventing games from being made, let alone legendary games that contradict the "difficult to dev for" mantra.
I wasn't gonna reply to you anymore but I did call out and asked you politely for sources to your statements which I proved to be false or fabricated...and confused.
You did, by making this post completely contradicted yourself and flip flopped without admiting you were wrong or mistaken.
First you claimed "people are overclocking SH4s at 400Mhz in their basements because it can scale to that" and I quoted your posts in earlier replies not seeking a debate, but because your "if" scenario of an overclocked Dreamcast 1999 global launch which is unrealistic at more than 200Mhz for SH4s that have to be mass produced, be reliable and even 50 to a 100Mhz gain is meaningless because it's just ONE CPU.
And again you fabricate more lies about Yu Suzuki statements without any proof or evidence but I will just quote you and remind you that.
Sega produced the Sega Hikaru arcade hardware which used DUAL SH4 CPUs @ 200Mhz and a Sega designed custom 3d chip.
Sega produced the NAOMI 2 arcade hardware in 2001 which used DUAL SH4 CPUs @ 400Mhz and Dual PowerVR chips among others and the primary game here is Virtua Fighter 4, its revisions, VF4 Evolution and VF4 Final Tuned.
Exactly!
Saturn had some of the best games of the entire decade. I wish Shenmue had come out for Saturn simply because I would like to have seen what Yu Suzuki could squeeze out of the Saturn.
[A machine he knew better than most because he oversaw development of the SGL to help third parties with development for the complex-as-fuck Saturn. He literally wrote the introduction to the revamped SGL notes].
God bless you, Son!
[urlt]
Hope that makes sense to you and anyone else here because I have mentioned, without Saturn (as big of a mistake as you claim it is which is not) you would not have Shenmue.
Proper business decisions should have been made, had Shenmue not been limited to Xbox contract and was reprogrammed on PlayStation 2, then it is perfectly credible that we would have had sequels to Shenmue long ago as Ryu Go Gotoku aka Yakuza has shown and evolved over time.
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Hey, I backed the 60$ physical game too!
And God bless you too, Globalisateur!
I'm going for the PC version, but will also get the PS4 physical version in 2017 because I don't trust PC DRM to let me play the game 15 years form now like I can with the DC originals. As history has shown, Shenmue is for the long haul.
This is going to be an expensive generation. I basically have to own every platform now. PS4 for Shenmue, X1 for Halo, Wii U for Zelda. Which kind of sucks, but at the same time, is also kind of awesome.
Eh, I guess I'd better provide some corrections to the things Akumajou is saying.
Just because you need correcting, I'll point out that I didn't say that people are overclocking their DC's to 400 mHz.
I never said that. Ever. I gave the figures for DC overlocks: ~230 on air 250+ with boosted cooling. Yu are having comprehension issues.
There is no doubt that the SH4 could reliably go to above 200, but not within the power and cooling limits of the March 1998 launch of Naomi. 200 mHz was the top speed for the embedded SH7750 that began shipping in Japan in Jan 1998, most likely for Naomi (as a major customer, Sega were involved with the processors development)
http://www.hitachi.com/New/cnews/E/1997/971110B.html
Higher clocks later on are a certainty, especially given greater power and cooling. Hitachi actually still list a 240 mHz embedded variant of the crusty old SH4 on their website (which, unsurprisingly, fits in perfectly with what over clockers of 1999 processors found):
http://www.renesas.eu/products/mpumcu/superh/sh7750/sh7751r/child/sh7751r_product_specifications.jsp
... and there are references on the web to 266 mHz embedded variants too. And for shits and giggles here, is the later SH4-A at 600 mHz:
http://documentation.renesas.com/doc/products/mpumcu/rej09b0261_7785hm.pdf
Sega weren't trying to shift Hikaru or Naomi 2 as a home system for 3rd parties, so your point is null.
As a Sega fan, I shouldn't need to provide Yu with Yu Suzuki's criticisms of the Saturn hardware. But as you're saying I'm making it up ...
http://imgur.com/a/aPyO7
""Trying to program for two CPUs has its problems. Virtua Fighter uses a different CPU for calculating each character. The two CPUs start at the same time but there's a delay when one has to wait for the other to catch up. One very fast central processor would be preferable. I don't thank that all programmers have the ability to program two CPUs - most can only get about one-and-a-half times the speed you can get from one SH-2. I I think that only one out of 100 programmers are good enough to get that kind of speed out of the Saturn."
One CPU per fighter might have made sense on Saturn VF where pretty much only the two fighters were made of polygons (distorted, individually mapped quads in the Saturn's case), but sure as shit, that's coarse grain multithreading that won't work for most games.
So that's Suzuki shitting on the Master/Slave bus and dual CPUs (over a decade before anyone made a success out of it). Still can't find the bit about Suzuki wanting to start from scratch instead of going for a third redesign of the Saturn, but if you doubt that at this point I don't know what to say.
Yu Suzuki's wish to make a Virtua Fighter RPG (that would become Shenmue) came from making VF2 for model 2. There is no doubt that the Saturn was an awesome machine, but many of it's awesome games would have been even more awesome if the Saturn hadn't been an underpowered, overly complex, and expensive to manufacture console.
Separate the incredible games from the loveable but bankrupting-to-manufacture hardware.
P.S. I own two Saturns: a generation 1 PAL unit (better than gen 2) and also a gen 1 PAL unit that's been modded for international play at 60hz (and yes, I've done the 60 hz mod). I also still own the copy of Panzer Saga I bought on launch day. In other words, I win... except perhaps where women are concerned. I don't understand them.
Dreamcast is my favourite console, as it is Yu Suzuki's. He's my favourite console buddy, even though he doesn't know it.
Sometimes, I wear a Yu Suzuki mask while playing Sword of Vermilion on my Plasma tv.
Just because you need correcting, I'll point out that I didn't say that people are overclocking their DC's to 400 mHz.
I never said that. Ever. I gave the figures for DC overlocks: ~230 on air 250+ with boosted cooling. Yu are having comprehension issues.
There is no doubt that the SH4 could reliably go to above 200, but not within the power and cooling limits of the March 1998 launch of Naomi. 200 mHz was the top speed for the embedded SH7750 that began shipping in Japan in Jan 1998, most likely for Naomi (as a major customer, Sega were involved with the processors development)
http://www.hitachi.com/New/cnews/E/1997/971110B.html
Higher clocks later on are a certainty, especially given greater power and cooling. Hitachi actually still list a 240 mHz embedded variant of the crusty old SH4 on their website (which, unsurprisingly, fits in perfectly with what over clockers of 1999 processors found):
http://www.renesas.eu/products/mpumcu/superh/sh7750/sh7751r/child/sh7751r_product_specifications.jsp
... and there are references on the web to 266 mHz embedded variants too. And for shits and giggles here, is the later SH4-A at 600 mHz:
http://documentation.renesas.com/doc/products/mpumcu/rej09b0261_7785hm.pdf
Sega weren't trying to shift Hikaru or Naomi 2 as a home system for 3rd parties, so your point is null.
As a Sega fan, I shouldn't need to provide Yu with Yu Suzuki's criticisms of the Saturn hardware. But as you're saying I'm making it up ...
http://imgur.com/a/aPyO7
""Trying to program for two CPUs has its problems. Virtua Fighter uses a different CPU for calculating each character. The two CPUs start at the same time but there's a delay when one has to wait for the other to catch up. One very fast central processor would be preferable. I don't thank that all programmers have the ability to program two CPUs - most can only get about one-and-a-half times the speed you can get from one SH-2. I I think that only one out of 100 programmers are good enough to get that kind of speed out of the Saturn."
One CPU per fighter might have made sense on Saturn VF where pretty much only the two fighters were made of polygons (distorted, individually mapped quads in the Saturn's case), but sure as shit, that's coarse grain multithreading that won't work for most games.
So that's Suzuki shitting on the Master/Slave bus and dual CPUs (over a decade before anyone made a success out of it). Still can't find the bit about Suzuki wanting to start from scratch instead of going for a third redesign of the Saturn, but if you doubt that at this point I don't know what to say.
Yu Suzuki's wish to make a Virtua Fighter RPG (that would become Shenmue) came from making VF2 for model 2. There is no doubt that the Saturn was an awesome machine, but many of it's awesome games would have been even more awesome if the Saturn hadn't been an underpowered, overly complex, and expensive to manufacture console.
Separate the incredible games from the loveable but bankrupting-to-manufacture hardware.
P.S. I own two Saturns: a generation 1 PAL unit (better than gen 2) and also a gen 1 PAL unit that's been modded for international play at 60hz (and yes, I've done the 60 hz mod). I also still own the copy of Panzer Saga I bought on launch day. In other words, I win... except perhaps where women are concerned. I don't understand them.
Dreamcast is my favourite console, as it is Yu Suzuki's. He's my favourite console buddy, even though he doesn't know it.
Sometimes, I wear a Yu Suzuki mask while playing Sword of Vermilion on my Plasma tv.
iceberg187
Regular
If I'd known they'd get this to 60fps, I would have waited before I beat it. Now I'm just waiting for 4.
