That’s a surprisingly good question but the answer may disappoint.  What we classify as the first console hardware generation (the Pong systems) actually predate the idea of bits altogether.   Why?  Well because bits typically refers to the data bus between the processor, the RAM and the GPU (graphics processor), the original Pong systems contained none of this.

Rather than process information like a modern computer, early hardware made use of transistors, like computers were doing as far back as 1954 (before that computers used vacuum tubes).  In essence, a transistor is a physical binary switch that can be in one of two states (off or on), very much like the binary bit the microprocessor would do a little later on.

A very interesting look as to how these early games worked can be found in this article and proves that even a game as simple as pong would have required several bits of memory to function.

As for the home consoles that followed, even the second generation (Atari 2600, Intellivision, ColecoVision etc.) were in fact powered by 8-bit processors.  There are often rumors that they were 4-bit and doubled to 8 upon the 3rd generation but these are untrue.  No 4-bit system ever existed (though it should be noted 4-bit processors did exist and were used in many calculators and even early simple handhelds).   The reason NES and Sega MS games look so superior to the graphics of the prior generation has all to do with the amount of RAM dedicated to graphics.

Q) I was wondering what language was used to program games for the NES and SNES? Could anyone write a game for these systems on today’s personal computers?

Let’s start with the last part of your question first.  Yes. Coding a game can be very easily done on today’s technology using any one of a variety of readily available options.  To mimic the resources available to developers at the time or to just get a better understanding of how systems like the NES process information across their data registries, using an emulator is a very convenient way of starting fresh or deconstructing the code of an existing game to see what does what.

That’s not the only means, however.  We live in a time where developing a game for nearly any platform (even modern hardware) can be accomplished using powerful preexisting engines (like Unity and Unreal).  Anyone with an internet connection has access to the same exact tools and resources as the best developers in the industry.  The myriad of options, customizations and controls of these engines can be extremely intimidating to beginners, however, so there are much simpler tools out there (Game Salad, GDevelop etc.) that all but eliminate the need to know how to code to make a game.

If you want to develop a game using pre-existing tools that can even be saved to a cartridge for play on original NES hardware, have a look at NESmaker.

Now as for the beginning of your question, most games were originally developed for the NES using 6502 assembly language and 65c816 assembly language for the SNES.

If you’re not familiar with assembly, it’s a low-level language that controls memory resources directly through the processor’s registries (6502 is, of course, the NES’ CPU).  This was critical as memory was so limited, working in a higher language would have been too taxing on system resources to run quickly and smoothly.

On the NES, writing game code in assembly was essential, but by the time the 16-bit era came around, some developers began writing in C and using the assembler just for the base code.  By the N64 era, programmers could develop games entirely in a higher-level language like C, though even then MIPS R4K assembly was still vital for maximizing the hardware configuration’s resources directly.

These days C++, C# and Python are popular languages for developers who prefer to do their own coding over using premade toolsets.

Q) Help settle a bet – was Purina’s Chase the Chuk Wagon or Mattel’s Kool-Aid Man the earliest known cross-promo in video gaming?

The answer is neither as both were released in 1983. Midway had an arcade racing game that served as a video game promotion for the Datsun 280-Z (called 280-ZZZAP) all the way back in 1976.

The post RETROSPECTIVE Mail Bag: Q&A Time appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

I may be in a silent minority when it comes to these matters, but I’ve been waiting around for Nintendo to release a version of the Switch that, as much as it pains me to admit, doesn’t look like is going to happen.  Worse still, it may never come to pass in future Nintendo hardware generations as well.

Before I get ahead of myself, let’s start at the beginning. I’ve been with Nintendo since the NES in 1986, having owned every single piece of home hardware they’ve released since. I was having parties in the 90s centered on cartridge-based Diddy Kong Racing and Mario Kart 64 while my college buddies were discovering Gran Turismo. I was there when the Gamecube failed to make an impact against Sony’s runaway powerhouse PlayStation 2. I was there when people who’d never played a video game before were accidentally throwing Wii-motes through their flat screens. I was even there when the Wii U was floundering like a beached salmon, doing my best to appreciate the wonky tablet controller, re-buying games from my PS3 library as a show of support.

While I certainly owned my fair share of Nintendo’s portable platforms throughout the years, beginning with the OG monochrome Game Boy, a pair of Gameboy Advances, and even the original DS in subsequent years, I’ve never fancied myself a true mobile gamer.  To my reasoning, gaming is best performed on the couch upon the biggest, highest-definition screen available.

When the Wii U’s proverbial plug was pulled, I, like the rest of the world, watched on apprehensively as Nintendo unveiled its next piece of hardware. Then known as the NX, this new kit, set to be released March of 2017, would do something many of us have sort of expected for a while now – it would finally bridge that gap between Nintendo’s home console and portable markets.

Console manufacturers crossing over into mobile markets is nothing new – Sega was doing it back in the 8 and 16-bit generations too, Atari dabbled, NEC got on board, SNK, even Sony had a pair of wildly successful handhelds amid its PlayStation generations.

The difference, though, is nobody ever managed to give Nintendo a true run for their portable money. Whether we are talking about the original GameBoy, the Color variant, the Gameboy Advance, the DS series – Nintendo has consistently owned the mobile console market.

So dominant has Nintendo’s portable market been, in fact, that it is credited with keeping the company afloat in even those occasional home hardware generations where the competition sent them reeling (Gamecube and Wii U, for example).

It only made sense, then, that Nintendo would slowly devise a means of pulling their two major demographics together into a single market share. The Wii U was, in my opinion, the testbed. It demonstrated the potential in combining tablet gaming with onscreen interaction and even teased the potential of continuing our console adventures in handheld mode when someone else needed the TV.

The NX (which we now know as the Switch) took these concepts to the next level, fully realizing all of the ideas of the Wii U. It was a true hybrid platform right out of the gate, combining the console gaming experience with the ability to take your games with you wherever you went. These weren’t scaled back ports, they weren’t miniaturized versions of the TV incarnations – they were the same game you had been playing on your TV, simply detached from the cord and displaying on the hardware’s own pocket-sized screen. The merger of Nintendo’s audiences was now complete.

For the next two years, the Switch built a loyal following. Nintendo moved enough units to surpass any concerns of a Wii U failure repeat, and gamers from both the TV and portable market seemed pleased with the hybrid methodology.

Then, in 2019, Nintendo announced a new version of the Switch. This incarnation would be $100 less than the $299.00 hybrid but would forego any and all of the television connectivity element in favor of a portable-only experience. Retailing at only $199, the Switch Lite integrated the detachable Joy-Cons of the hybrid directly into the hardware and shrunk the screen down to 5.5 inches diagonally (from 6.2 inches of the original Switch).

The logic here made sense – not everyone in Nintendo’s demographic cared for the home console aspects of the experience. For the mobile devotees, Nintendo had you covered. A more affordable MSRP meant no sense paying for features you wouldn’t use. If you needed to take your gaming on the go, Nintendo had the Switch for you.

Here’s my concern – While Nintendo merged two of its major demographics with the Switch, then catered a hardware iteration to those who only game on the go, why in the world didn’t they also think to release a more affordable incarnation to the rest of us? Why no console-only box for those of us who choose to play our games at home, on the big screen?

Sure, I get it – there’s the hybrid version if you insist upon big-screen gaming, but, isn’t there the hybrid version if you insist upon portable gaming too? The Lite works because it doesn’t make you pay for features you won’t use. Gamers like myself, with no inclination to carry our systems around with us, would also like the option to save $100 on features we won’t use as well.

Further, even though the original hardware works on a television out of the box, the form factor is hardly conducive for this type of setup alone. You have Joy-Cons that need to be attached to the tablet itself in order to be recharged, a cumbersome method of changing out games while the system is docked. It’s a hybrid, after all – the jack of all trades but master of none.

That being said, I would love to have had the option of buying a small set-top box with a Switch cartridge slot and an HDMI output in the rear. Package that bad boy up with a Switch Pro Controller for $199 and Nintendo would have had a viable competitor in this demand-outpacing-supply ninth home hardware console generation.

Best of all, since the Switch’s library has been amassing since 2017, the Switch TV Console would have an advantage that neither Sony nor Microsoft can, at present, match: a catalog of killer apps available now.

In conclusion – it’s well known that Nintendo marches to the beat of its own drum, and the chances of getting a third (well, fourth considering the recent OLED screen variant – another configuration designed with features that benefit only portable users) iteration of the Switch philosophy are slim at best. However, for those of us big screen gamers looking to continue with the Nintendo console tradition, it would be nice if, at the very least, we were given the same treatment as the mobile market.

The post When The Nintendo Switch You Really Want Doesn’t Exist appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

That’s a good point. Bits as a unit of measurement really was more of a marketing technique than it was a true measure of hardware performance – The realities of this started showing through in the 32-bit generation when multiple processors in a single piece of hardware proved that every company was coming up with bit count by their own set of mathematics.

Atari’s “64-bit” Jaguar, for example, had a 64-bit object processor and blitter, but all of the actual processing was accomplished in 32-bit increments. Meanwhile, Sega marketed its Saturn as a 32-bit machine, strictly based on its CPU, disregarding the fact that its output was the result of a dual-CPU architecture and eight processors working in unison.

These days the media, users and developers alike tend to use the teraflop (or t-flop) as a measure of hardware rendering performance, which is a unit of computing speed equal to one million, million (10 to the 12th) floating-point operations per second.

While the trillion calculations per second model seems to be a lot more scientific/ less marketing hyperbole than old bits, that too doesn’t tell much of a story.  Teraflops can be useful on paper if trying to determine which given configuration has more computing potential, but in the real world, performance is the result of so many factors working in conjunction (these days even a setup’s monitor capabilities can account for a huge portion of display potential), that a standard unit of performance measurement is really just a pipedream.

Q) Now Intellivision is trying to raise capital by pushing $80 bundles of “games” that are really just boxes of download codes for games that aren’t even finished?  Do you still think the Amico is going to come out? I’m glad I bailed on this dumpster fire when I did.

As I don’t have money tied up in its crowdfunding, I have the luxury of remaining neutral on these developments, but will confess that very little of what they have been doing of late seems very encouraging.  Endless delays, a massive price increase in hardware MSRP, and now, as you pointed out, desperate gimmicks to earn additional capital are certainly troubling signs.

I will admit that when the system with its library of modern retro titles was initially announced, I was excited.  In the time since much of that excitement is being replaced with apprehension.  I’m hopeful they’ll turn it all around soon but can definitely understand why early backers are having serious doubts.

Q) Can someone tell me why the 32-bit generation is considered the first to be 3D? I had Doom and Mario Kart on SNES. There are still 2D games being produced on the hardware of today. What determines such a distinction?

That’s a good question.  There were 3D viewpoints from the dawn of video gaming and 2D gameplay will likely never go out of style but the reason the 32/ 64-bit generation is known for the transition to 3D not so much strictly because of the hardware, but because there was a shift in the design philosophy of game creation.

If you were to go back to the 1970s and transition across the entire 8 and most of the 16-bit eras that followed, you would find that the predominant method of video game design was based around the sprite. Hardware was designed to allow for sprite layers – this, coupled with tile-based graphic storage, meant the process games were created was pretty consistent for many, many years.

3D achieved in games like Mario Kart and Doom wasn’t true 3D, so much as it was a trick to make the sprite layers appear 3D to the player.  Mario Kart, in fact, used the famous Mode 7 capabilities of the SNES to allow a simple 2D sprite layer to be tilted onto an angle and rotated around the character sprite so as to appear like an interactive track environment.

Doom, too, looked 3D to the player, but each room was in fact a stand-alone environment from the rooms next to it.

3D, in the case of PlayStation, Saturn and N64 was built upon an entirely different system – polygons (a figure made of a finite number of straight lines connected to form a closed system). Unlike the 2D sprite, polygons could move through an entire, interconnected environment. Rooms had actual relationships to other rooms in these worlds.  In essence, this is still the primary method of game development to this very day.  We just keep increasing system specs to allow for higher and higher polygon counts as the generations wear on.

The PlayStation, Saturn, N64 etc. made the method popular because they had literally been designed to handle this type of game development right from the onset.  However, as you pointed out, they were not the first to make use of the concept. What was the first game to use polygons?  Battlezone from Atari, released in 1980. Starfox was also an actual polygonal 3D title on the 16-bit SNES.

The post Mailbag Time: More Q&A appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

On account of a seemingly endless series of non-gaming related distractions (sometimes referred to as life), I’ve been regretfully slow at responding to some of the great reader questions that find me on social media.

Let’s take a look into the digital mailbag and see if we can’t rectify that situation.

Q) Regarding your coverage of 16-bit fighting games, wondering if you’re planning on continuing on with 3D titles (some of my favorites to date).  Also what was the worst fighting game you played back then?

I honestly gave consideration to carrying on with the fighting game coverage into the 3D foray when titles like Virtua Fighter and Tekken and Battle Arena Toshinden came onto the scene.  In fact, it could be argued that the transition to pseudo 3D began even earlier than these when games like Ballz 3D came to the 16-bit platforms.  The trouble, I soon discovered, was that there is no definitive point to stop.  It could very easily be argued that 3D fighting games from those days never stopped being produced and still exist today.  One of the problems of writing for a retro-centric mag is that there is no clear and concise line between what separates modern from vintage.  And if there were, it would be forever advancing as newer hardware is a very frequent cycle.

In short, this is the long way of saying that while I do remember that transition to 3D well and respected it at the time for what it was, stopping the coverage at the conclusion of the 2D era made for a good bookend.

As for the worst – that’s tough!  I had some very dubious titles in my Genesis collection while waiting for SFII; Street Smart, Fighting Masters, Slaughter Sport.  I think one of the worst though had to be the home port of Pit-Fighter.  Atari had beat Mortal Kombat to the punch (no pun intended) on the whole digital scanned characters in a one-on-one fighting game but abysmal controls and some of the choppiest animation in existence at the time made this one of those rare instances where it couldn’t go back to the rental store quickly enough!

Q) You seem to cover the Amico a lot but rarely talk about the new VCS.  Why play favorites?

I do try to treat all new retro-themed hardware equally but the VCS is a tough sale for me.  While it is admittedly nice to once again see the Atari logo on a new piece of hardware – especially one with some wood veneer face plating; the price and purpose of the new VCS really make it difficult for me to even understand what they are attempting or who it’s for.

It is essentially a very pricy Linux box with an included 2600 emulator.  Already there are instructional videos appearing online on how to get the UI to work on any PC.  Worse still, at $300 without a controller, and the fact that titles purchased outside of their Vault system aren’t cheap, it’s really encroaching on next gen prices to play some titles that are available just about anywhere else these days (for considerably less).

Again, no bias intended but unless the hardware cost comes down substantially or they begin to get some exclusive killer apps, the Flashback 9 Gold with its 110 titles, two controllers and 720P output that I picked up for $50 will probably retain its entertainment center location.

Q) What is your feeling on this Next Generation madness?

I am usually a sucker for the latest and greatest hardware but have bowed way out of the mess that has been the Playstation 5 and XBox Series X launch.  Sony and Microsoft did consumers no favors when releasing (just before the holidays, no less) hardware that they knew couldn’t keep up with consumer demand.  It’s no industry secret that Covid has severely limited raw material production and stymied shipping times and, as predicted, resulted in a situation where demand severely outweighed supply.

This isn’t the first time we’re seeing this and it surely won’t be the last (a very famous example of this technique being used to manufacturer extreme demand would be Nintendo with the NES Classic Edition) but it feels like the public in general is extra antsy of late – due, in no small part I’m sure, to political unrest, Covid-induced isolation stir craziness and the arrival of government stimulus checks.  It’s all adding up to a fever pitch where product is being purchased up by scalpers who are demanding (and getting) exuberant money for the hardware.

The worst part about this all is that this is possibly the most unnecessary hardware generation in the history of home gaming – the reality is that 85% of consumers don’t even own displays powerful enough to capitalize on the hardware’s increased video output and there is no exclusive “next gen” software slated to be released for the next two years.  In short, waiting on this one makes a lot of sense.

Q)  Why hasn’t Nintendo released an N64 Mini yet?  What do you think will be the next retro console to get a mini?

As to why Nintendo hasn’t released an N64 Mini, I can only speculate.  The most likely answer is that Nintendo, being Nintendo, marches to the beat of its own drum.  They don’t seem overly concerned with what’s going on in the industry at a given moment, instead opting to release products that no one sees coming.  Another way of saying it is they generally like to be trend setters, not followers of trends (even the ones they create).

Aside from that, Nintendo is in a strange position.  Unlike many of the other retro minis being produced, Nintendo is still a very active company in the current console and handheld generations.  They still manage to make millions upon millions in selling their retro games across all of their platforms (both physically and in their e-shops).  Often times their biggest competition on these things is themselves.  So while no one doubts an N64 Mini would sell extraordinarily well, it’s very possible Nintendo doesn’t see the need to open a factory to manufacturer the new hardware when they still have many of the titles available from the system’s library available for purchase already.

As far as what will be the next retro mini – this logic is the opposite of my answer above.  Companies that are not currently active in the industry have a great opportunity to capitalize on licenses and hardware that has been lying dormant for decades right now.  If you were a rights-holder to something like 3DO or CD-i or Amiga CD32, this would be a gold mine opportunity.  Strike while the iron is hot.

If you wanted my prediction, I’d take the easy way out (since it was already confirmed) and say it’ll be another from Sega.  Which one, however, that’s a bit tougher.  Most are hopeful it will be a Dreamcast Mini but I’m not so sure they would leapfrog to the very last piece of hardware they manufactured.  I would hope they would do a Saturn Mini next with plans to follow that one up with the Dreamcast a couple years after.

The post The RETROSPECTIVE Mailbag appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.