The truth about Phantasy Star 4 insane price (by Vic. Ireland)

[Team Andromeda]

Sub-Terrania was supposed to be like just programmed on the fly, which made it very hard for Sega to organise the code better for testing. According to a Sega-16 Interview I recall reading.

I think Gogo means library in terms of number of games, rather that development libraries. I don't think SEGA supplied 3rd party tools and libraries in the Mega Drive days . Looking over that there was a great deal of games running and performing well on the Saturn. Sadly only games which performance worse and look worse get highlighted, rather than the games that either run well or sometimes look and run better than their PS counter parts

[Zebbe]

Looking over all that Pier Solar is really don't nothing more than what Square was doing back in 1993 on the Snes when all is said and done.

It seems like you haven't played the game at all.

[Gogogadget]

Plenty of developers worked out how to use the system and used it to the max , but they were the ones who didn't use rubbish excuses about the system being hard to develop on, rather than say the real reason was poor market share and the fact that most of the time the Saturn port was given low priority and low resources .

So, the actual reason why a ton of multi-plat titles look better on PS1 is that the PS1 is better than the Saturn?

I mean I love my Saturn... for 2D games anyway, but even Deep Fear in 1998 looks like an early PS1 title at best, and even the 3D killer app imo Burning Rangers is a hot mess of glitchy, ugly graphics. There are legit a handful of 3D titles on Saturn that don't look absolutely horrible, Wipeout being a nice exception to the rule where the Saturn version is actually superior but by 1997, 1998? Yeah.

I think Gogo means library in terms of number of games, rather that development libraries.

I do yeah.

[Sik]

I got PSIII when it had just come out, and was really disappointed with the game overall. It ruined PS series for me (reason why I skipped PSIV). I have no idea if anyone else felt the same, outside my circle of friends, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Go play it, it makes PSI and PSII look bad in comparison =P

SONY was given a Saturn license, SEGA number one rival at the time . Some times parties just get a license to hedge their bets

To be fair, they were making a few games before the PS1 (hello Cliffhanger!). And then there was Psygnosis.

In fact I'm sure it was CORE that said that back inthe 1990 SEGA didn't even supply developers with tools and libraries for any Mega Drive devloper you had to make them all yourself . All you got was a badly translated Hardware documentation sheet

"disenable DMA" (whatever that means)

I think Nintendo wasn't any better though, I recall reading about Japanese developers having to make their own development tools for NES and SNES too (it didn't help matters that it seemed like everybody had a different expensive computer model - NEC seemed to profit a lot from this too for that matter, I swear they provided most of those computers). Looks like the only premade tools anybody used were sound engines (which is why the same engine seems to come up in games from unrelated companies).

So yeah, at least in Japan the SDK situation seemed to be a trainwreck, and probably only stopped in the 5th generation because programming to the bare metal wasn't a very feasible option anymore. The West seemed to have had better luck with it (at least we know of some tools that were being passed around, not to mention sample code that could have been easily repurposed).

[Thief]

So, the actual reason why a ton of multi-plat titles look better on PS1 is that the PS1 is better than the Saturn?

I mean I love my Saturn... for 2D games anyway, but even Deep Fear in 1998 looks like an early PS1 title at best, and even the 3D killer app imo Burning Rangers is a hot mess of glitchy, ugly graphics. There are legit a handful of 3D titles on Saturn that don't look absolutely horrible, Wipeout being a nice exception to the rule where the Saturn version is actually superior but by 1997, 1998? Yeah.

Yeah, well Square's Final Fantasy Tactics on PS1 does not compare to Shining Force 3 on Saturn in any category. I'm also surprised many don't praise SF3 Scenario 2 & 3 more on Saturn for pushing the console graphically (transparency, lighting, high quality textures that never seems to pixelate, no warping polygons, great use of VDP2) now that it's had a translation for quite some time. And all this with basically no load times.

Also, plenty of multi plat titles that look better on Saturn too. But... lets get back to PSIV.

[tomaitheous]

Go play it, it makes PSI and PSII look bad in comparison =P

Well, yeah haha - I've had a chance to play it since (when Kega first came around). It's pretty awesome.

[Melf]

Stop being so insulting... I'm well used to and well aware of the tactics used by sales people and the PR dept and there's nobody better at that than TOM K (even worse than Phil Harrison) . Forget Vic Toms lies and spin make Phil Harrison look like a saint

You only seem to have such negativity for Kalinske though. It's like he smashed your puppy's head in with a 32X or something.

SONY was given a Saturn license, SEGA number one rival at the time . Some times parties just get a license to hedge their bets

True, but WD actually made games for the Saturn. If Vic was so indignant at SOA's snubbing him, he sure didn't show it during that entire generation.

[Team Andromeda]

Go play it, it makes PSI and PSII look bad in comparison =P


To be fair, they were making a few games before the PS1 (hello Cliffhanger!). And then there was Psygnosis.

Psygnosis had their own licences SONY's was separate.

I think Nintendo wasn't any better though, I recall reading about Japanese developers having to make their own development tools for NES and SNES too (

Yes that's true, It wasn't untill Atari and the Lynx that developers were given tools and libraries along with full documentation .

[Team Andromeda]

You only seem to have such negativity for Kalinske though. It's like he smashed your puppy's head in with a 32X or something.

How childish is that statement ?

[Team Andromeda]

So, the actual reason why a ton of multi-plat titles look better on PS1 is that the PS1 is better than the Saturn?

Because it was the lead platform and had the bulk of developers backing ?. The Amstard CPC was a much more capable machine that the ZX spectrum, but thanks to ZX being the lead platform and the platform that sold by far the most, many ports to the Amstrad were simply ZX code and not using the system at all. Many 360 ports to the PS3 suffered untill corps made the PS3 the lead platform rather than the 360 .

And you know there's a ton of N64 games with rubbish graphics, sub 30 fps and super low res loads on the PS2 that look like cr8p , but you carry on with the Saturn and btw no the Saturn version of Wipeout isn't superior at all don't know where you got that from

[tryphon]

ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC shared some parts of hardware, such as CPU, which made those kind of"downports" easier. Same for Atari ST and Amiga. Absolutely not the case for PS and Saturn.
The truth is elsewhere !

[IrishNinja]

How childish is that statement ?

...is he wrong, though? kalinske's name triggers you like someone disparaging the N64 around ABF

[Team Andromeda]

...is he wrong, though? kalinske's name triggers you like someone disparaging the N64 around ABF

So Childish . I do find it rather funny how Vic can get called out for being a liar (despite no one giving a valid reason for PS4 price) and yet Tom Kalinske can get away with bare face lies, spin.

[Team Andromeda]

ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC shared some parts of hardware, such as CPU, which made those kind of"downports" easier. Same for Atari ST and Amiga. Absolutely not the case for PS and Saturn.
The truth is elsewhere !

It just being lazy by the developer and it happen with Mega Drive code on the Snes - which produced poor results and I lost count of the number of Poor looking PS2 and N64 games , yey lets focus on the Saturn

[Gogogadget]

Yeah, well Square's Final Fantasy Tactics on PS1 does not compare to Shining Force 3 on Saturn in any category. I'm also surprised many don't praise SF3 Scenario 2 & 3 more on Saturn for pushing the console graphically (transparency, lighting, high quality textures that never seems to pixelate, no warping polygons, great use of VDP2) now that it's had a translation for quite some time. And all this with basically no load times.

Also, plenty of multi plat titles that look better on Saturn too. But... lets get back to PSIV.

The general rule of thumb with "is this strategy RPG as good as Shining Force?" the answer is no. Fire Emblem is still very good, but no.

Also PSIV is great.

and btw no the Saturn version of Wipeout isn't superior at all don't know where you got that from

I've played both, the Saturn version you don't immediately lose all speed when you crash into a barrier so... superior version to me. Misses NegCon support but all that does is make an already difficult game even more difficult. Also please don't accuse me of defending the N64, i've never once said anything good about the N64 in my life.