Hi, is there an official story about why U.S. Gold finally abandoned the CPC conversion of Street Fighter 2? It is really ture they were working on it?
I'm not so sure they really put much effort into it. The CPC was something that developers either rose to the challenge, or utterly detested. The other 8bit versions were such disasters that I honestly believe that that the CPC version was aborted.
Didn't stop Amstrad Action winding us up for a further two years about it. I phoned US Gold up and asked if there was ever any plans for one. But that was late 1994 and there's been quite a turnover in staff since so they couldn't honestly answer it.
That's my take on it anyway. I'm open to correction though.
U.S.Gold even dared to say that the game took some delay because it was developped by a team of french people (sic!).
Dishonest bastards you mean !
the fact is that they would have done the game as 128k only. In UK, it was mostly a CPC 464 market.... hence the problem.
Quote from: dlfrsilver on 10:42, 04 July 17
the fact is that they would have done the game as 128k only. In UK, it was mostly a CPC 464 market.... hence the problem.
I'm not entirely sure I buy this one either. It didn't stop them with Final Fight, which probably would have used similar sprites to SFII. It was 128k only as well.
I think it would have been a farce anyway. They probably could have made it look good, but speed would probably have been sacrificed for it. But who knows for sure?
Wouldn't surprise me if US Gold led us on the whole time but then again, a lot of software houses were anti-CPC at the time... a lot of Codemasters didn't come out (but they did on the Spectrum and C64), we never got Robocop 3 - if it couldn't fit on cart, when why not do a version on the normal CPC...
Presumably they were planning to just port the Speccy release and, when that got slated in reviews, decided it really wasn't worth the effort.
I assume that the cpc just didn't make enough money for them at the time and it wasn't even worth porting games. Possibly there was no team who wanted to work on 8-bits anymore because they wanted to work on 16-bit.
It would be nice to know the actual reason rather than guessing.
In the UK the 8-bits seemed to stop fairly quickly. The Speccy and C64 didn't hold on that long either because I think a lot of people were on 16-bits and consoles then. I remember their magazines becoming thin too.
It may have been worth developing and selling it in France but maybe they were not so interested in that market?
A book about history of u.s gold was released,maybe they speak about It.
Nobody have It?.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/47744432/the-history-of-us-gold/comments (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/47744432/the-history-of-us-gold/comments)
Certainly, back in those days I was already playing with a Megadrive. I mean, I was using the Amstrad as a "serious" computer to program my things, try to develop crappy games, type documents and for text adventures but almost all my real gaming was already in the console. The difference was so massive that the 11-12 year old me was unable to find a reason to keep playing with the CPC... I still remember switching from the CPC Golden Axe to the Megadrive version. Man, that was something :-\ .
Quote from: zeropolis79 on 22:10, 04 July 17
Wouldn't surprise me if US Gold led us on the whole time but then again, a lot of software houses were anti-CPC at the time... a lot of Codemasters didn't come out (but they did on the Spectrum and C64), we never got Robocop 3 - if it couldn't fit on cart, when why not do a version on the normal CPC...
I don't think it was so much anti-CPC, from the software houses, just that a lot of developers found the CPC quite difficult to work with and found it easier to port over from the Spectrum or something else. It's a real shame when we had people like Dave Perry & Nick Bruty, as well as Richard Aplin who really knew how to get the best out of the machine once they made a little effort.
Quote from: andycadley on 06:17, 05 July 17
Presumably they were planning to just port the Speccy release and, when that got slated in reviews, decided it really wasn't worth the effort.
I wouldn't rule this out in the slightest.
Quote from: arnoldemu on 08:17, 05 July 17
I assume that the cpc just didn't make enough money for them at the time and it wasn't even worth porting games. Possibly there was no team who wanted to work on 8-bits anymore because they wanted to work on 16-bit.
It would be nice to know the actual reason rather than guessing.
In the UK the 8-bits seemed to stop fairly quickly. The Speccy and C64 didn't hold on that long either because I think a lot of people were on 16-bits and consoles then. I remember their magazines becoming thin too.
It may have been worth developing and selling it in France but maybe they were not so interested in that market?
There was definitely an interest in the UK and Ireland for the game, it was a massive hit in the arcades, I actually blame the game for killing the arcade scene because of it's popularity. All the variety in arcades were replaced with multiple SFII machines. It got boring very quickly for arcade fans. But you've hit the nail on the head when it came to the writing being on the wall for the 8bit. Especially as the Megadrive had just dropped and we knew the SNES was on it's way. While the NES' popularity over in the UK and Ireland was skyrocketing in 91 and 92.
Quote from: dragon on 08:30, 05 July 17
A book about history of u.s gold was released,maybe they speak about It.
Nobody have It?.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/47744432/the-history-of-us-gold/comments (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/47744432/the-history-of-us-gold/comments)
They do touch on it. I'll transcribe:Quoted by Simon Haddington:
"Geoff (Brown) would get the licence and then it was a fait accompli and it was over to you then to turn it into something. Really it was a question of who was the cheapest ad who could do it the quickest. It was cash that talked, or timing. It didn't matter about the quality back then. For example, on Street Fighter II there were certain teams who could be used - Creative Materials, Tiertex, Probe - and you'd say we've got to start this and finish it in four weeks. Have you got a team that can do this?
There was a preference to use Tiertex whenever possible because of US Gold having a stake in them. For thisgame Tiertex got the job of producing the Spectrum version and Creative Materials did the rest. Quite honestly US Gold just released stuff with bugs in it, and didn't care because that was Woody's job to cover it and try to get the good reviews even if the game was a pile of crap."
But that's really as far as they got with Street Fighter in the book. 1990-1993 is heavily glossed over as they transition from 8 bit to 16 bit.
Quote from: ||C|-|E|| on 09:41, 05 July 17
Certainly, back in those days I was already playing with a Megadrive. I mean, I was using the Amstrad as a "serious" computer to program my things, try to develop crappy games, type documents and for text adventures but almost all my real gaming was already in the console. The difference was so massive that the 11-12 year old me was unable to find a reason to keep playing with the CPC... I still remember switching from the CPC Golden Axe to the Megadrive version. Man, that was something :-\ .
Yep, and the simple truth of the matter is, the 8bit computer scene was dying at an alarming rate once the NES became a proper contender for the SMS (it took ages for the UK and Ireland to catch the two machines head to head, the Master System had a good two year lead or so), and the Megadrive landing. It was all consoles from there on in. Shops saw this and acted accordingly and the shelves were being slowly cleared to make more room for the ever expanding library for the Nintendo and incoming Megadrive titles.
In the UK from 1990, lots of people moved onto the Amiga and the Atari ST for obvious reasons. Even I got a second hand A500 in 1991. The difference was astounding. As soon as one kid got one, everyone had to have one and thus within a year a lot of people had transitioned.
The SNES and Megadrive also went big for the gamers, but the cartridge cost did limit the market. It's one thing paying £20 for an Amiga game, another thing to pay £40-£80 quid for a SNES game. I'm guessing the 18-25 market went big for these.
Quote from: Sykobee (Briggsy) on 12:35, 05 July 17
In the UK from 1990, lots of people moved onto the Amiga and the Atari ST for obvious reasons. Even I got a second hand A500 in 1991. The difference was astounding. As soon as one kid got one, everyone had to have one and thus within a year a lot of people had transitioned.
The SNES and Megadrive also went big for the gamers, but the cartridge cost did limit the market. It's one thing paying £20 for an Amiga game, another thing to pay £40-£80 quid for a SNES game. I'm guessing the 18-25 market went big for these.
You're forgetting an important factor in all of this, and I'm sure it was popular in the UK, but game rentals were extremely popular here in Ireland. You could rent a Nintendo game for about £2.50-£3 a week, have it finished in that space of time from constant playing and then go back to your video store and rent another one. So being a console owner was definitely feasible even if you couldn't afford to shell out for the cartridges. A lot of trading/swapping went on then too. Same as the CPC really, only the games weren't as easy to duplicate, but the swapping and renting still happened.
Most of my friends were renting like crazy back in those days. I was one of the few spoiled kids buying the games, but because I got lucky :) . Actually, it was very common for the people to keep just the games that came with the console plus the odd addition during Christmas, Birthdays and special occasions. It made quite a lot of sense, a Megadrive game was around 10000 pesetas. This is equivalent to 60 euros, and not 60 euros from nowadays, but 60 euros in 1990. That was a lot of money! I still remember when I found Mega Turrican for 3000 pesetas (18 euros) in a big shopping center. I could no believe my eyes and I was begging my parents the whole evening to get it :laugh:
I was quite spoilt around Christmas time as well as my birthday falls on January 7th, which is too late to attempt to combine the two.
And Christmas was always compilation time too, so the amount of good shit I was always able to get between December 25th and January 9th that came out on compilation. Got some amazing bargains. Like the following:
Konami Arcade Collection: Hypersports, Mikie, Nemesis, Shaolins Road, Jackal, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Yie Ar King Fu 2, Green Beret (not a peep out of you guys about the flick screen scrolling!), Jail Break and Ping Pong.
Taito Coin-Op Hits: Flying Shark, Rastan, Bubble Bobble, Arkanoid, Arkanoid II, Slap Fight, Legend Of Kage and Renegade.
The In Crowd: Gryzor, Combat School, Crazy Cars, Platoon, Predator, Karnov, Target Renegade and Barbarian.
Frank Brunos Big Box: Bombjack, Ghosts N Goblins, Commando, Battleships, Airwolf, Batty, Frank Brunos Boxing, Saboteur, 1942 and Scooby Doo.
Then you had mates who also got compilations for Christmas too... And the trading started up again. By February, your library just ramped up!
I missed out on the 16bit revolution for quite some time, my social life had been turned up a notch, it was only when I took a break from it years later, I got back into Megadrive gaming.
It is clear that there are priorities in this life... that is why I always kept my social life to a bare minimum, constraining it to the Internet domains and only hanging out with three other gamers from my childhood in real life. Then, after my 20s, there was the occasional girl too and, of course, the mandatory weekend alcoholic blackouts. These were with my same three friends, so we continued speaking about computers, programs and games even drunk. This trend lasted until I was 27. Now that I am 37 I have two or three more friends :-\
Quote from: dragon on 08:30, 05 July 17
A book about history of u.s gold was released,maybe they speak about It.
Nobody have It?.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/47744432/the-history-of-us-gold/comments (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/47744432/the-history-of-us-gold/comments)
I have a copy of that book. I don't recall reading anything about the 8-bit versions of
Street Fighter II, but it does have a very interesting section about the story behind
World Cup Carnival - but that's a completely separate topic... :laugh:
Saw an interview with Sugar and he basically said they lost the market very very quickly almost like overnight, I presume he was referring to the release of the plus and the subsequent failure although he didn't say it in the interview. Went from being the leader in Europe to zero.
Quote from: Nich on 21:08, 05 July 17
I have a copy of that book. I don't recall reading anything about the 8-bit versions of Street Fighter II, but it does have a very interesting section about the story behind World Cup Carnival - but that's a completely separate topic... :laugh:
It was definitely covered. Page 93. :)
Quote from: tjohnson on 21:51, 05 July 17
Saw an interview with Sugar and he basically said they lost the market very very quickly almost like overnight, I presume he was referring to the release of the plus and the subsequent failure although he didn't say it in the interview. Went from being the leader in Europe to zero.
I don't think he aimed that specifically about the computers, just his budget electronics business in general. Once the likes of Argos, etc got into that market, he found himself under competition that he really wasn't used to, and he sank as a result.
If it wasn't for providing Sky with set top boxes for years ahead, Sugar would have been financially ruined decades ago.
Quote from: tjohnson on 21:51, 05 July 17
Saw an interview with Sugar and he basically said they lost the market very very quickly almost like overnight, I presume he was referring to the release of the plus and the subsequent failure although he didn't say it in the interview. Went from being the leader in Europe to zero.
Yeah, the Plus range was a misfire - too late, Z80 was too weak.
There should have been a Plus range of computers (the styling was nice), but it shouldn't have been based on the classic CPC, but as a cost-reduction of Amstrad's then-viable PC business. Problem was that Intel didn't price their CPUs cheaply, but there were alternatives. A 10MHz+ NEC V20/V30 CPU, 256KB RAM, better graphics, might have been a goer as long as standard PC games could run on it. V33 or V53 would have been even better. Sure, it's not a 386 but that was too expensive in 1990.
Zilog were a second source of V30 chips - http://cdn.cpu-world.com/CPUs/V30/L_Zilog-Z70116-5DS.jpg
Quote from: Sykobee (Briggsy) on 12:31, 06 July 17
Yeah, the Plus range was a misfire - too late, Z80 was too weak.
There should have been a Plus range of computers (the styling was nice), but it shouldn't have been based on the classic CPC, but as a cost-reduction of Amstrad's then-viable PC business. Problem was that Intel didn't price their CPUs cheaply, but there were alternatives. A 10MHz+ NEC V20/V30 CPU, 256KB RAM, better graphics, might have been a goer as long as standard PC games could run on it. V33 or V53 would have been even better. Sure, it's not a 386 but that was too expensive in 1990.
Zilog were a second source of V30 chips - http://cdn.cpu-world.com/CPUs/V30/L_Zilog-Z70116-5DS.jpg (http://cdn.cpu-world.com/CPUs/V30/L_Zilog-Z70116-5DS.jpg)
That would have tanked them just as fast though. You have to remember, PC gaming was at an all time minimum between 1990-1995 until Doom and Hexen came along. The Plus range WOULD have worked a year earlier, but instead Amstrad pushed the Spectrum line, complete with TV advertising. Why, I've no idea because it's not like the Speccy was selling badly, so it didn't need it.
Amstrad's target market was the consumer market. The consumer market was not interested in PC's back then. Like the PCW, the PCW was not aimed for home users. So basing the plus machines on a business model would have finished them just as fast.
I still maintain had Amstrad gotten the plus machines out a year earlier, Developers would have found more interest in how to work the cartridges and it would have been a bigger success by 1990 (not to mention they'd have been able to write Street Fighter II as a cartridge release too!) But by releasing them in 1990, the writing was on the wall for with 8bit computer with the NES finally surfacing in Europe and an increasing software catalogue, and the Megadrive on the horizon. That's the direction the herd was going and the developers were only too eager to head that direction also.
Well it wouldn't have been branded as a PC, nor would it have looked like a PC.
but yeah, it probably wouldn't have done much better than the Plus range - any improved performance would have been offset by increased price, and then you had to consider the Amiga.
So indeed, 1 year earlier for the Plus, with an 8MHz Z80, and more RAM, might have been the better alternative history.
The developers would not have done better. They had instructions about the target because of costs (no surprises) -> 64K, floppy/K7
Quote from: roudoudou on 13:08, 06 July 17
The developers would not have done better. They had instructions about the target because of costs (no surprises) -> 64K, floppy/K7
Yeah, I keep forgetting that the GX4000 being only 64K, and Street Fighter would definitely not have run on such little RAM.
Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 13:11, 06 July 17
Yeah, I keep forgetting that the GX4000 being only 64K, and Street Fighter would definitely not have run on such little RAM.
Yeah but cart is instant loading so it can load stuff into memory and delete it when no longer needed and load in something else in no time at all so doesn't need as much RAM to fit everything into all at once.
Personally as much as I love my CPC and I love Street Fighter II, it's never even registered to me as something that should be together even back then with all the hype. Much of what I like about the game just doesn't translate as well to a CPC's technical specs and general set up. So I was never that fussed about Amstrad Action wanting to review it as I felt it would have been lousy anyways.
I have a lot respect for the unofficial high quality looking port in development but it's just not a game where I find 8-bit limitations charming and fun enough to want to play it over a more authentic version such as the SNES or the many home-releases of the arcade version over the years. That port looks like a great achievement and I'll certainly play it from a curious and technical viewpoint but I can't see it being something I'll return to when I have so many other fancier versions of the game and it's sequels.
Quote from: Carnivius on 13:50, 06 July 17
Personally as much as I love my CPC and I love Street Fighter II, it's never even registered to me as something that should be together even back then with all the hype. Much of what I like about the game just doesn't translate as well to a CPC's technical specs and general set up. So I was never that fussed about Amstrad Action wanting to review it as I felt it would have been lousy anyways.
I felt the same way until I saw the 128k versions of Final Fight and Double Dragon...
Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 13:51, 06 July 17
I felt the same way until I saw the 128k versions of Final Fight and Double Dragon...
Final Fight in particular is why I never thought SFII would be a good idea on CPC. Especially back in it's commercial market. It already alienated anyone who didn't have 128k and for those who did it was an admirable attempt but only really worth it if you didn't live near an arcade or couldn't afford a better version (to be fair the first SNES port was pretty loiusy in some ways) since it's really not all that fun.
Street Fighter II is a more complex in-depth game than Final Fight with many more frames of animation for so many more moves. Whereas Final Fight has scrolling and multiple enemies the combat is relatively basic, whereas Street Fighter II really requires a good sense of timing and learning all your character's advantages and disadvantages of every move they have.
I still think the Spectrum port of SFII is a decent attempt to try and bring it to the machine so as a Spectrum fighting game it has some merit but I don't consider it a particularly good conversion of Street Fighter II at all and certainly no reason to play it other than some retro novelty value.
Quote from: Carnivius on 13:50, 06 July 17
Yeah but cart is instant loading so it can load stuff into memory and delete it when no longer needed
A classic game in 64K need to share memory: video memory / game code / sprites / background / ...
With a cart, you do not have to load sprites or background into memory -> Just connect the ROM and copy straight to video memory
SFII could be done on GX4000, but back in the days (90's) developpers would not have done two (very differents) versions of the game cause that was too expensive
Quote from: Carnivius on 14:00, 06 July 17
I still think the Spectrum port of SFII is a decent attempt to try and bring it to the machine so as a Spectrum fighting game it has some merit but I don't consider it a particularly good conversion of Street Fighter II at all and certainly no reason to play it other than some retro novelty value.
Having recently gotten into Speccy gaming, I still maintain that it's monochrome graphics are real off putter, especially coming from an Amstrad background. But the speed difference can really make up for it if you can put it behind you.
If there had been a CPC version, it would more than likely have been a lazy port of the Speccy version, so I'm kinda glad we didn't get it in the end, but I do honestly believe the CPC had the capability to produce it. But nobody wanted to put the effort in.
Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 13:11, 06 July 17
Yeah, I keep forgetting that the GX4000 being only 64K, and Street Fighter would definitely not have run on such little RAM.
With 512KB of directly accessible ROM, and a game like SFII being mainly imagery with little mutable state, I think it would have been possible.
The real problem with SFII, as can be seen from the Amiga and ST versions, is that a single fire button control method just does not cut it. And getting passed that obstacle was pretty much a killer for all the home computer versions, even the GX 2-button pads wouldn't have really been enough.
But had the Plus range come along a year earlier it might have been enough to have a little more impact, but even then the competition was the Amiga and an 8-bit machine was always going to face an uphill battle on that front.
Master system have sfii with two buttons, Z80, less ram that gx4000,But more hardware sprites.
And It run, so i don't view a reason the gx400 can't run sfii
Quote from: Sykobee (Briggsy) on 16:18, 06 July 17
With 512KB of directly accessible ROM, and a game like SFII being mainly imagery with little mutable state, I think it would have been possible.
Quote from: andycadley on 20:19, 06 July 17
The real problem with SFII, as can be seen from the Amiga and ST versions, is that a single fire button control method just does not cut it. And getting passed that obstacle was pretty much a killer for all the home computer versions, even the GX 2-button pads wouldn't have really been enough.
But had the Plus range come along a year earlier it might have been enough to have a little more impact, but even then the competition was the Amiga and an 8-bit machine was always going to face an uphill battle on that front.
To address both of these, but pretty much nail on the head. Had the GX come out a year earlier and developers had more time and interest to devote to it and really learn how to make it tick, it could have been easily doable, but again, by 1991, the writing was on the wall for the 8bit computers. Now if the GX4000 had been more of a success, there may have been interest to develop for it, but by 91, the console was seen as nothing more than a paper weight, and developers were eager to move on to the NES, Master System and Megadrive. They were done with the classics. It was the end of an era really. Biggest arcade game for that period of time, and it wasn't deemed worthy to convert to the 8bit systems. Said it all.
Quote from: Shaun M. NearyI don't think it was so much anti-CPC, from the software houses, just that a lot of developers found the CPC quite difficult to work with and found it easier to port over from the Spectrum or something else.
I do not agree. Here is why : after doing some research, it appeared that since when they made a game most of the time the assets were shared between the C64, speccy and CPC.
The problem was that companies always did the CPC versions is 1 or 2 months when they did the same game in many months on C64 and Speccy.
that's the reason why : "we want all the versions before date XX/XX/XX" "holy fuck, we spent too much time on the speccy and C64, only 1 month remains to do the CPC version !".
And you get the picture !
QuoteIt's a real shame when we had people like Dave Perry & Nick Bruty, as well as Richard Aplin who really knew how to get the best out of the machine once they made a little effort.
this doesn't need efforts, it takes TIME ! you need TIME to make quality products, that's the awful truth. Look the games done by ocean on CPC, they took enough time to make good games, and it paid.
Most ocean games are always better on the CPC than on the C64 and speccy !
Quote"Geoff (Brown) would get the licence and then it was a fait accompli and it was over to you then to turn it into something. Really it was a question of who was the cheapest ad who could do it the quickest. It was cash that talked, or timing. It didn't matter about the quality back then. For example, on Street Fighter II there were certain teams who could be used - Creative Materials, Tiertex, Probe - and you'd say we've got to start this and finish it in four weeks. Have you got a team that can do this?
You see, it's not about the CPC, it's about professionalism, doing things the right way and so on. They were talking about deadline time only, never about quality or getting the source code in order to gain time in the porting.
Definitely an earlier release of the plus range / gx would have stood it in better stead. It probably wasn't sufficient an enhancement to excite developers and I remember lots of noise about the megadrive and SNES at the time, even though they weren't yet available in UK, so it was seen as old tech with some extra bells and whistles.
Why did Amstrad leave it so long? Perhaps they misjudged the speed of change, they did a fantastic job to recognise an opportunity in the first place and got the original designed and built in record time. Did Alan take his eye off the ball or a little complacency set in?
We will never know what could have happened but looking now it is almost inconceivable that Amstrad could have remained a big player in the long run anyway and would probably have gone later anyway like Commodore did and later Atari and Sega.
As for why SFII never hit the CPC I suspect it was a simple business decision, the risk of investing in it outweighed any potential return.
Any news or update about this version?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PMd_O5e120
Quite impressive how much it resembles the Mega System and Mega Drive versions (the former mostly)...
Quote from: tjohnson on 11:09, 07 July 17
Definitely an earlier release of the plus range / gx would have stood it in better stead. It probably wasn't sufficient an enhancement to excite developers and I remember lots of noise about the megadrive and SNES at the time, even though they weren't yet available in UK, so it was seen as old tech with some extra bells and whistles.
Why did Amstrad leave it so long? Perhaps they misjudged the speed of change, they did a fantastic job to recognise an opportunity in the first place and got the original designed and built in record time. Did Alan take his eye off the ball or a little complacency set in?
We will never know what could have happened but looking now it is almost inconceivable that Amstrad could have remained a big player in the long run anyway and would probably have gone later anyway like Commodore did and later Atari and Sega.
As for why SFII never hit the CPC I suspect it was a simple business decision, the risk of investing in it outweighed any potential return.
With Amstrad and the Plus machines timing, it was a bad judgment call and they spent hoards of money pushing the Spectrum the Christmas beforehand. When the sales for it didn't boost as much as their lightgun action pack didnt rise as much as they'd hoped, they went back to focusing on their primary machine but the ship was pulling out of the harbour at tha point.
With little to no time to write a version from scratch and the Speccy version too poor to port over, it wasn't worth US Golds effort. I'm not even sure the C64 saw a release either but I'm open to correction on that.
Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 02:11, 08 July 17
With little to no time to write a version from scratch and the Speccy version too poor to port over, it wasn't worth US Golds effort. I'm not even sure the C64 saw a release either but I'm open to correction on that.
It did and it's atrocious.
Quote from: tjohnson on 11:09, 07 July 17
Definitely an earlier release of the plus range / gx would have stood it in better stead. It probably wasn't sufficient an enhancement to excite developers and I remember lots of noise about the megadrive and SNES at the time, even though they weren't yet available in UK, so it was seen as old tech with some extra bells and whistles.
Why did Amstrad leave it so long? Perhaps they misjudged the speed of change, they did a fantastic job to recognise an opportunity in the first place and got the original designed and built in record time. Did Alan take his eye off the ball or a little complacency set in?
We will never know what could have happened but looking now it is almost inconceivable that Amstrad could have remained a big player in the long run anyway and would probably have gone later anyway like Commodore did and later Atari and Sega.
As for why SFII never hit the CPC I suspect it was a simple business decision, the risk of investing in it outweighed any potential return.
I think the form off Alan bussisnes is the cause of the dead plataform. Alan always make have a 30% a of profit in every computer selled. So the components should be cheap.
Sony and sega and Nintendo, Drop money with each console sold. And they make money with royality in the games.
So they can have best hardware.
I think at finish the open source form of the microcoomputers kill the CPC indirectly in form of z80 outdated, because is cheap.
Quote from: dragon on 10:08, 08 July 17
Sony and sega and Nintendo, Drop money with each console sold. And they make money with royality in the games.
So they can have best hardware
Dunno how true that was with the Wii. It was painfully out of date in specs when released since it's not much more than a Gamecube repackaged with a gimmicky motion controller. When emulating on PC you don't even need two seperate emulators as Dolphin does both Gamecube and Wii. Even selling the machine cheaper than the xbox360 and ps3, Nintendo either didn't lose much money or perhaps even profitted from sales of it. That cheap underpowered console did mean third party support dropped pretty quickly as AAA developers making multi-platform games could produce X360 and PS3 versions to be pretty similar but Wii often needed so much downgrading or (in the case of some games like Ghostbusters where the Wii couldn't do the movie-accurate realistic character models so went with an over-stylised cartoony look) restyling to be workable on it's specs it just wasn't worth the effort.
And yeah that C64 SFII is horrendous. Ugly as heck, boring looking 3 colour sprites (like most C64 games) and why does that awful rendition of the the very short character select music just keep on going and going and going....?
Oh and speaking of Nintendo and Street Fighter II, my friend just sold his Switch cos he was hoping that new release of Ultra Street Fighter II would be worth it but it's mostly junk (expensive junk cos he had to purchase those overpriced Pro controllers just to play the game properly cos the regular Switch controllers are trash for most things, but especially for SFII). And Capcom are con-artists these days anyways. They still make some good games (and good Street Fighter games such as IV and V despite the initial release version of V missing a lot) but they really like to try squeeze all the pennies out of their fans with silly prices, season passes and overpriced DLC. A cheap, PC with MAME installed and a couple of controllers of your own choosing connected it the best/cheapest/most-practical way to play SFII anyways.
Quote from: Carnivius on 11:01, 08 July 17
Dunno how true that was with the Wii. It was painfully out of date in specs when released since it's not much more than a Gamecube repackaged with a gimmicky motion controller.
To be fair it was the gimmicky controller that caused it to do as well as it did and caused Microsoft and Sony to follow suit with the Kinect and Playstation Move. But otherwise I'm in complete agreement here. 576p resolution for a 2007 console was laughable. The Wii U was what the Wii should have been, and that also was out of date by the time it surfaced in 2012. That said, I lost two and a half stone with the help of Wii Fit U, so I won't hear a bad word said about it. ;)
Found something strange and interesting at the same time: the english wiki page of the original game list the Amstrad CPC version as it was effectively coded by Creative Materials and relased along with the other home-computers portings:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_II:_The_World_Warrior#Ports (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_II:_The_World_Warrior#Ports)
then the "home-computers" paragraph doesn't cite it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_II:_The_World_Warrior#Home_computers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_II:_The_World_Warrior#Home_computers)
Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 13:50, 08 July 17
To be fair it was the gimmicky controller that caused it to do as well as it did and caused Microsoft and Sony to follow suit with the Kinect and Playstation Move. But otherwise I'm in complete agreement here. 576p resolution for a 2007 console was laughable. The Wii U was what the Wii should have been, and that also was out of date by the time it surfaced in 2012. That said, I lost two and a half stone with the help of Wii Fit U, so I won't hear a bad word said about it. ;)
It's weird how the least initially successful of the motion controller stuff (the PS Move) is the only one to have found new life since it's now an often necessary peripheral for the recent PSVR (although Nintendo gets the credit for popularising motion control at the time, the Wii did seem to be basically an extension of the PS2's Eyetoy gimmick which had come out before it). And yeah the Wii itself was a gimmick cos as successful as it was, Nintendo didn't really have a clue to keep all those non-traditional-gamer customers it had convinced to buy the Wii when it came to the Wii U and Switch. Customers like my mum. :P
But then Nintendo does so some odd things. And since this is a Street Fighter II thread it brings to my mind how that the SNES port was a killer app for that system, yet the N64 never even got a single Street Fighter game at all. One of many reasons I found very little to enjoy about my damn idiotically overpriced early Japanese import N64 I had bought purely cos of how much I had loved my NES, SNES and to a lesser extent Gameboy, SFII being a huge part of the SNES love and regular after-school tournaments with my friends.
Quote from: felow on 16:44, 08 July 17
Found something strange and interesting at the same time: the english wiki page of the original game list the Amstrad CPC version as it was effectively coded by Creative Materials and relased along with the other home-computers portings:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_II:_The_World_Warrior#Ports (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_II:_The_World_Warrior#Ports)
then the "home-computers" paragraph doesn't cite it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_II:_The_World_Warrior#Home_computers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_II:_The_World_Warrior#Home_computers)
Never believe *everything* you read on wikipedia. Any idiot can set up an account and write and edit *any* article.
If anyone was more likely to code it for the CPC, it probably would have been Tiertex, they did the vast majority of US Gold's Capcom releases. On top of that, Tiertex were responsible for the Speccy version, which more than likely would have been ported to the CPC at a push, especially with the lack of time given to knock it out.
Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 00:32, 06 July 17
It was definitely covered. Page 93. :)
It appear u.s gold have many games terminated and, not released. Recently in interview with factor 5 guys. The team tell that they made a 1:1 port of snes indianajones trilogy to megadrive. But was unreleased thanks to u.s gold XD.
So not discard street fighter 2 is coded.
There is a lot of interest in a game that was promised but never released, I guess we may never know if it got written or not, maybe one day some old code may surface. In the spanning years and all the interest I'm surprised a version has never actually been written.
There is a strange history here un Spain back to the 92/93. In these epoque one of the shops that sell sending games across mail called telejuegos. Published street fighter 2 to buy un diferente plataforms.
The history is strange, because the people that buy the spectrum or amstrad versión, recieve the amiga version. And then one or two week later the shop dissappears from the map. Not responding telephone.
This is a picture of the announce:
(http://www.subirimagenes.com/imagedata.php?url=http://s3.subirimagenes.com:81/fotos/5274422sfii.jpg)
The game of the century, they said! :D
Quote from: dragon on 22:09, 06 August 17
There is a strange history here un Spain back to the 92/93. In these epoque one of the shops that sell sending games across mail called telejuegos. Published street fighter 2 to buy un diferente plataforms.
The history is strange, because the people that buy the spectrum or amstrad versión, recieve the amiga version. And then one or two week later the shop dissappears from the map. Not responding telephone.
This is a picture of the announce:
(http://www.subirimagenes.com/imagedata.php?url=http://s3.subirimagenes.com:81/fotos/5274422sfii.jpg)
I bought the game, received the Amiga version, returned the game and lost my money.
Quote from: roudoudou on 14:01, 06 July 17
A classic game in 64K need to share memory: video memory / game code / sprites / background / ...
With a cart, you do not have to load sprites or background into memory -> Just connect the ROM and copy straight to video memory
SFII could be done on GX4000, but back in the days (90's) developpers would not have done two (very differents) versions of the game cause that was too expensive
I guessed that was why Ocean never did normal CPC versions of Plotting, Navy Seals, Robocop 2, Toki, Robocop 3, Space Gun
Quote from: ||C|-|E|| on 07:31, 07 August 17
The game of the century, they said! :D
Well, they didn't state which century.
Quote from: zeropolis79 on 16:01, 16 August 17
I guessed that was why Ocean never did normal CPC versions of Plotting, Navy Seals, Robocop 2, Toki, Robocop 3, Space Gun
I'm fairly certain that most, if not all of those ended up on the Spectrum. I'm quite shocked that nobody was even lazy enough to port those over.
That's how dead the Amstrad scene was in 91 though, when nobody was lazy enough to port over for a quick cash grab, it's game over.
Ocean did the choice to be a major gx4000 publisher and excepted with game like total recall, all of their titles from Christmas 90/Spring 91 were advertised on cartridges. More, they wanted to port shadow of the beast and double dragon on cartridge ! They did it on c64 cart for sotb.
Gremlin did the same thing with switchblade. Thanks to carts failure we gained a classic cpc port in 91.
Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 01:20, 18 August 17
I'm fairly certain that most, if not all of those ended up on the Spectrum. I'm quite shocked that nobody was even lazy enough to port those over.
That's how dead the Amstrad scene was in 91 though, when nobody was lazy enough to port over for a quick cash grab, it's game over.
Everything that came out of cart was released on tape or disc for the Speccy and I had most of them bar Space Gun and Robocop 3 (only because they'rre so damned rare).
(But Ocean changed teir policy o make all Spectrrum games 128k only from 1990 onwards)
Quote from: zeropolis79 on 07:05, 24 August 17
Everything that came out of cart was released on tape or disc for the Speccy and I had most of them bar Space Gun and Robocop 3 (only because they'rre so damned rare).
(But Ocean changed teir policy o make all Spectrrum games 128k only from 1990 onwards)
A tape or disk release would have effectively crippled the games to be down-gradable to the standard CPC hardware. So there would have been no smooth scrolling in Robocop 2 or Navy Seals, for example and the palette choices would be limited by what you could successfully map back onto the standard CPC colors. Cart games that were just cheap disk ports already took criticism for this, imagine if all of them had done it.
The only other choice would have been to write a completely separate version for a tape/disk release and the CPC market just wasn't a big enough player to accommodate that. Ocean went all in on pushing the Plus machines and, whilst it turned out not entirely successful, it was probably a more sensible bet than trying to half-ass it.
Quote from: zeropolis79 on 07:05, 24 August 17
Everything that came out of cart was released on tape or disc for the Speccy and I had most of them bar Space Gun and Robocop 3 (only because they'rre so damned rare).
(But Ocean changed teir policy o make all Spectrrum games 128k only from 1990 onwards)
That's a very good point that I hadn't considered. But Street Fighter probably would have ended up being 128k only anyway just like Final Fight did.
I respect that Ocean was the main supporter of the Plus/GX4000 range and they wanted to give it a chance but us normal CPC users felt short-changed by it, especially when Spectrum owning friends could get what we couldn't.. I don't think Ocean were right to reserve all the top stuff for the cartridge.. The Simpsons was a major let down.. WWF wasn't too bad while Battle Command, Total Recall and The Addams Family were good.
Switchblade never suffered going onto the normal CPC. .
I couldn't see Street Fighter 2 working on 64k either.
Quote from: zeropolis79 on 17:06, 24 August 17
I respect that Ocean was the main supporter of the Plus/GX4000 range and they wanted to give it a chance but us normal CPC users felt short-changed by it, especially when Spectrum owning friends could get what we couldn't.. I don't think Ocean were right to reserve all the top stuff for the cartridge.. The Simpsons was a major let down.. WWF wasn't too bad while Battle Command, Total Recall and The Addams Family were good.
Switchblade never suffered going onto the normal CPC. .
I couldn't see Street Fighter 2 working on 64k either.
In defense, Robocop 2 on the Speccy was a completely different game to the GX4000. Chase HQ 2 was awful.
I didn't mind The Simpsons, I thought WWF on the CPC was a big let down. Was a nice attempt at an original game based off it's arcade counterpart (Superstars in the Arcade was tag team based, but premise was based from it), but it was too much of a graphics disaster to get behind it.
But yeah, Street Fighter 2 wasn't going to work on 64k. Hell, the original Street Fighter didn't work! One standard kick and punch, no fireballs even. SF2 was never gonna stand a chance on 64K at all.
Quote from: zeropolis79 on 17:06, 24 August 17
Switchblade never suffered going onto the normal CPC.
YMMV, I still think Switchblade suffered heavily by being primary targeted at the standard CPC range. A full on Plus targeted release could have been a lot better.
Quote from: andycadley on 22:59, 25 August 17
YMMV, I still think Switchblade suffered heavily by being primary targeted at the standard CPC range. A full on Plus targeted release could have been a lot better.
I still prefer the regular CPC version over the cart version. Don't like the hardware sprites on the cart at all. They just seem too random and inconsistent. Only real advantage is the quick loading.
In the case of RoboCop 2 I got more fun out of the Spectrum version. Still has some annoying jumping bits (RoboCop should NOT jump for jeezus mcripes sake) but less so than the Plus game and there's plenty more shooting of bad guys which should always be the main focus of fun gameplay in a RoboCop game which the Plus game seemed to miss entirely.
The hardware sprites, have the function of add more colours in screen independent of background. Not only to save cpu time. Its the trik of amstrad to reuse old cpc gate array desing.
I not view it random or inconssistent, the best games pang or prehistorick 2, use it very well.
Quote from: dragon on 09:24, 26 August 17
The hardware sprites, have the function of add more colours in screen independent of background. Not only to save cpu time. Its the trik of amstrad to reuse old cpc gate array desing.
I not view it random or inconssistent, the best games pang or prehistorick 2, use it very well.
yeah they use it well. Switchblade does not. If it could have been used to add colour to the player character Hiro perhaps giving him a nice flesh tone and his red headband, trousers he's supposed to have it would look better. And as for the raster background you only see for first few screens, the similar game Stryker did that a hell of a lot better with smoother colours, a variety of colour schemes and you spent more of the game outdoors so you'd see more sky anyways. Don't think that was ever on cart though, but a tape/disk that detected Plus hardware if you had it.
In the data east arcade game robocop can jump. he can even play with his twin brother on the 2nd coin up game !
I read somewhere that for robocop 2 ocean tried to do a different game for each platform (amiga and st release are far different, st is close to gx4000 release).
Quote from: Carnivius on 08:48, 26 August 17
In the case of RoboCop 2 I got more fun out of the Spectrum version. Still has some annoying jumping bits (RoboCop should NOT jump for jeezus mcripes sake) but less so than the Plus game and there's plenty more shooting of bad guys which should always be the main focus of fun gameplay in a RoboCop game which the Plus game seemed to miss entirely.
Yeah, the speccy version is one of the better releses, though the jumping mechanic is very clunky, especially because you have a habit of jumping about when you're trying to aim upwards. The GX version is still much better than the horrible abomination that is the C64 version though - I have no idea what the thinking behind that version was but it doesn't feel like a Robocop game at all.
Quote from: Carnivius on 10:06, 26 August 17
yeah they use it well. Switchblade does not. If it could have been used to add colour to the player character Hiro perhaps giving him a nice flesh tone and his red headband, trousers he's supposed to have it would look better. And as for the raster background you only see for first few screens, the similar game Stryker did that a hell of a lot better with smoother colours, a variety of colour schemes and you spent more of the game outdoors so you'd see more sky anyways. Don't think that was ever on cart though, but a tape/disk that detected Plus hardware if you had it.
I've just been playing switchblade on both cpc and gx4000 today, I agree that far better use of the hardware spirits could have been made, would have preferred to have more colour on the main character like you say and then cpc version seems to add more colour in the status bars than the gx4000 version.
Quote from: Carnivius on 08:48, 26 August 17
RoboCop should NOT jump for jeezus mcripes sake
https://youtu.be/A56135DgHs8?t=2m47s
Quote from: tjohnson on 22:57, 26 August 17
I've just been playing switchblade on both cpc and gx4000 today, I agree that far better use of the hardware spirits could have been made, would have preferred to have more colour on the main character like you say and then cpc version seems to add more colour in the status bars than the gx4000 version.
Probably is some type of time development problem. To use hardware sprites in main character they need remade all subrutine asociated to main character to the hardware sprites, movement,collissions etc etc.. they should be more easy in the 90 put little static hardware sprites here and there.
Quote from: dragon on 12:42, 27 August 17
Probably is some type of time development problem. To use hardware sprites in main character they need remade all subrutine asociated to main character to the hardware sprites, movement,collissions etc etc.. they should be more easy in the 90 put little static hardware sprites here and there.
If you're planning a game that runs across all models, you're pretty much going to avoid using the new hardware capabilities for any critical functionality, because that way you don't need to rewrite key parts. That tends to limit things to using a straight palette switch and maybe a few small effects here and there like hardware sprite foreground objects or raster changes like the sky in Switchblade.
Quote from: GOB on 11:29, 27 August 17
If you're referring to him 'jumping' on Cain's back? That's a very, very small jump from a 'platform' higher than the target. So really more of a planned fall than a jump and certainly nowhere near the heights reached in the RoboCop games that have him jumping like a regular platform game character. :P
A guy in spanish forum put a picture of the spectrum version he recieve in spain in the 90 inside commodore box
The manual have instructions to load the game, in tape and disk. In the cpc
(http://oi65.tinypic.com/19wmqo.jpg)
(http://oi65.tinypic.com/2mx1xlc.jpg)
It appear diferent to the world of spectrum manual, he not have amstrad disk
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/games-info/s/StreetFighterII.txt (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/games-info/s/StreetFighterII.txt)
This is quite interesting as the fact that the Wikipedia page of the game lists also the Amstrad version and all the rumors stuff on the Amstrad magazine at the time of the porting releases. I agree that wiki texts should be always be taken with great care but I also usually tend not to think everything strange or uneven should necessarily be fake or uncorrected.
My point is, as when I started this topic, is: ok, there was no release of SFII on CPC . First: we are sure about that? Not even very few copies maybe distributed with great delay against the C64 and Spectrum before the end of CPC market and 8-bit games led to the decision to stop every kind of distribution? I admit it is too imaginative but has US Gold EVER stated officially, after a lot of rumoring that they were porting the game for the CPC and announcing that, even listing this version on the promotional and publicity campaign, that they DIDN'T released the CPC version?
Second: in case they effectively didn't finally release the game on the market, maybe the CPC version was anyway a realty. One thing does not rule out the other. Maybe there's still a prototype (or finished version) somewhere. Remember the Atari 8-bit version of Commando, completed but never released and then surfaced years later. Another example could be the recent spotted prototype of Sim City for NES.
Yeah, personally, i think the game was planned and developed,if not not make sense include de load instruction in the manual.
Buy only the u.s gold guys know what happend, and nobody ask about it.(retrogamer,or u.s gold book people).
If only geof brown have twitter or something else we can ask it wtf.
The spanish guh have put more.pictures of the manual:
(http://oi64.tinypic.com/zv351g.jpg)
(http://oi68.tinypic.com/6ifbqu.jpg)
(http://oi63.tinypic.com/fxqhdu.jpg)
(http://oi68.tinypic.com/28uqvsm.jpg)
(http://oi66.tinypic.com/fktzlj.jpg)
(http://oi64.tinypic.com/jsyk9l.jpg)
(http://oi67.tinypic.com/21cdm6h.jpg)
(http://oi64.tinypic.com/2ez0c91.jpg)
It appears only to 128k anyway. But im curious why amstrad disk version was plannned and spectrum disk not.
Quote from: felow on 09:28, 09 September 17
This is quite interesting as the fact that the Wikipedia page of the game lists also the Amstrad version and all the rumors stuff on the Amstrad magazine at the time of the porting releases. I agree that wiki texts should be always be taken with great care but I also usually tend not to think everything strange or uneven should necessarily be fake or uncorrected.
My point is, as when I started this topic, is: ok, there was no release of SFII on CPC . First: we are sure about that? Not even very few copies maybe distributed with great delay against the C64 and Spectrum before the end of CPC market and 8-bit games led to the decision to stop every kind of distribution? I admit it is too imaginative but has US Gold EVER stated officially, after a lot of rumoring that they were porting the game for the CPC and announcing that, even listing this version on the promotional and publicity campaign, that they DIDN'T released the CPC version?
Second: in case they effectively didn't finally release the game on the market, maybe the CPC version was anyway a realty. One thing does not rule out the other. Maybe there's still a prototype (or finished version) somewhere. Remember the Atari 8-bit version of Commando, completed but never released and then surfaced years later. Another example could be the recent spotted prototype of Sim City for NES.
Street Fighter II was never released for Amstrad CPC. Same case than Mega Twins (a demo with first unfinished levels was released few years ago).
Quote from: dragon on 11:15, 09 September 17
It appears only to 128k anyway. But im curious why amstrad disk version was plannned and spectrum disk not.
Spectrum disk games were much less prevalent than Amstrad ones, mostly because only the +3 had a disk drive and it wasn't an overly successful model and certainly nowhere near as popular as the tape based +2.
Quote from: felow on 09:28, 09 September 17
This is quite interesting as the fact that the Wikipedia page of the game lists also the Amstrad version and all the rumors stuff on the Amstrad magazine at the time of the porting releases. I agree that wiki texts should be always be taken with great care but I also usually tend not to think everything strange or uneven should necessarily be fake or uncorrected.
My point is, as when I started this topic, is: ok, there was no release of SFII on CPC . First: we are sure about that? Not even very few copies maybe distributed with great delay against the C64 and Spectrum before the end of CPC market and 8-bit games led to the decision to stop every kind of distribution? I admit it is too imaginative but has US Gold EVER stated officially, after a lot of rumoring that they were porting the game for the CPC and announcing that, even listing this version on the promotional and publicity campaign, that they DIDN'T released the CPC version?
Second: in case they effectively didn't finally release the game on the market, maybe the CPC version was anyway a realty. One thing does not rule out the other. Maybe there's still a prototype (or finished version) somewhere. Remember the Atari 8-bit version of Commando, completed but never released and then surfaced years later. Another example could be the recent spotted prototype of Sim City for NES.
Basically the publicity campaign was gonna happen as all versions got released roughly around the same time, While US Gold never publicly admitted that there was never any intention of a CPC release, that admission would have come from the if you had contacted them directly, which I actually did do back in 1993 when they practically admitted that the writing was on the wall for the Amstrad in 1991 as far as they were concerned. While the c64 was still selling machines at the end of 91 with the Terminator 2 pack and the Spectrum machines were still being produced up until 1992, the buzz had been going around since late 1990 that the plus sales didn't not do as well as they'd hoped. I'll go out on a limb and say that the major software houses got wind of this and saw it as one less machine to worry about.
Bottom line, it was never going to happen due to US Gold viewing it as a secondary machine that wasn't going to sell. Especially as Final Fight didn't exactly do very well for them on the Amstrad in terms of sales, even if it wasn't actually a bad game.
But not make sense. If cpc was drop, why they release indiana jones and fate of atlantis?. Lucasfilm yes, but capcom not?.
Quote from: andycadley on 12:05, 09 September 17
Spectrum disk games were much less prevalent than Amstrad ones, mostly because only the +3 had a disk drive and it wasn't an overly successful model and certainly nowhere near as popular as the tape based +2.
Came out at the arse end of the Spectrum's life. Game was probably planned a year in advance and the Speccy market collapsed practically overnight. A decision on a CPC version was probably taken after the Speccy version was in development and it would have become clear it was a 128k only game thus limiting the audience. So why bother? US Gold fobbed off the magazines for as long as they could. It was never going to happen. We never even got pre-release screenshots.
The Speccy market collapsed so quickly the game was rushed onto budget in Summer '93 and sold at £4.99 (presumably to reflect how new the game was and also to recoup the cost of the C60 needed to house the game). Someone on a forum who worked in a computer shop at the time told me a whole load of copies turned up as the wholesaler was trying to ditch them. No market. Of course those Kixx copies are now extremely collectable.
Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 12:18, 09 September 17
Spectrum machines were still being produced up until 1992, the buzz had been going around since late 1990 that the plus sales didn't not do as well as they'd hoped. I'll go out on a limb and say that the major software houses got wind of this and saw it as one less machine to worry about.
Anyone seen a Spectrum with chips with date codes later than mid 1991? Finding one with '91 date codes is hard going. Never seen any '92 models. Suspect Amstrad just had a load of '91 models in their warehouse they just filtered out.
Quote from: dragon on 16:11, 09 September 17
But not make sense. If cpc was drop, why they release indiana jones and fate of atlantis?. Lucasfilm yes, but capcom not?.
It would have been a 128k only game thus halving the sales. Why bother?
Quote from: chinnyhill10 on 17:18, 09 September 17
Anyone seen a Spectrum with chips with date codes later than mid 1991? Finding one with '91 date codes is hard going. Never seen any '92 models. Suspect Amstrad just had a load of '91 models in their warehouse they just filtered out.
Haven't gone looking so I haven't seen, I'm new to the Spectrum scene. I may have worded my original post, source was Wikipedia but I really should have said that it was discontinued in 1992 in order to avoid presumption that they were still being produced up until then.
Quote from: chinnyhill10 on 17:19, 09 September 17
It would have been a 128k only game thus halving the sales. Why bother?
This! There had already been a few 128k only games coming out by 1991 and they weren't great, and by then nobody was gonna upgrade from a 48k to 128k machine when 16bit was the next obvious choice. Especially when Sega's Megadrive was either just on the verge of release here or had just been released.
the fact it's listed only for 6128 goes in the way of Final Fight, as someone else stated previously on this topic. And I agree it would make no sense to include the CPC instructions in the manual if they were still only considering such version or were uncertain about it. But everything is possible... just let say that for me something went wrong when they were very close to release or, most likely, approaching and beginning distribution phase of that precise version when video-gaming scene immediately started to change so fast. But frankly I think they at least already started to code the CPC version (perhaps completed, who knows?) and also I could be wrong but I remember some advance sprites capture popping up on magazines...
And for me Final Fight was a really good porting...
The 128K issue is an interesting point. The Spectrum scene had been swinging heavily in favour of 128K only titles since about 1990 and it didn't really impact things so much because most Spectrums were 128K machines (anecdotally I've seen it said that probably the +2A or at least the combined +2 figures represent the most sold machine). The CPC scene, on the other hand, still had a fairly broad 64K base and there had never really been that same drive to upgrade in quite the same way. Given the basic assumption that the CPC version would almost certainly be a quick port of the Speccy version, it's entirely possible the poor sales of Final Fight coupled with the negative reactions in the press to the other 8-bit versions, may have been enough to shelve any plans that may have been considered.
Quote from: jason9 on 11:22, 10 September 17
the fact it's listed only for 6128 goes in the way of Final Fight, as someone else stated previously on this topic. And I agree it would make no sense to include the CPC instructions in the manual if they were still only considering such version or were uncertain about it. But everything is possible... just let say that for me something went wrong when they were very close to release or, most likely, approaching and beginning distribution phase of that precise version when video-gaming scene immediately started to change so fast. But frankly I think they at least already started to code the CPC version (perhaps completed, who knows?) and also I could be wrong but I remember some advance sprites capture popping up on magazines...
And for me Final Fight was a really good porting...
I think people are reading too much into this, given the fact that the Spectrum controls were often very similar to Amstrad controls in terms of both joystick and keyboard. Didn't grow up with a C64 so I wouldn't know there, but a lot of games I played on both as a kid had the same controls, I used to use the keys a lot cos many others were so used to joysticks and I went through joysticks like there was no tomorrow! So the chances are that the box art and instructions were the first thing to be produced, long before the game was produced (which makes sense from a marketing perspective especially if they want promotional posters done ahead of time and with so many games looming on the horizon). Which probably explains occasional errors in instruction manuals, but more often or not, the keys were QAOP Space, or ZXKM Space or the usual suspects.
Again, mere speculation on my part, but it fits.
Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 00:34, 11 September 17
I think people are reading too much into this, given the fact that the Spectrum controls were often very similar to Amstrad controls in terms of both joystick and keyboard.
Indeed. Manuals would be printed in advance and they can make assumptions about what the controls may be. CPC version could have been dropped at any stage even at the planning stage.
Someone said a magazine had screenshots yet I don't recall AA having any. Seems unlikely if they did exist that AA wouldn't have printed them. Probably the case they planned to port the Speccy code with new graphics but it became clear the Speccy version was not working well and trying to make it work in 64k with a 16k screen was just a non-starter.
AA definitely didn't have screen shots. They used illustrations any time they printed off one of their (many) features on the game.
I'm forever amused that so many people treat SFII like it was a conspiracy theory or something. It really wasn't. It was business. By the time Street Fighter II was due for release on the 8bit markets, The Amstrad wasn't shifting units like it had been, be it on a hardware or software level.
Had it done so, it more than likely would have been a lazy Speccy port and 128k only just to save time.
Quote from: chinnyhill10 on 01:28, 11 September 17
Indeed. Manuals would be printed in advance and they can make assumptions about what the controls may be. CPC version could have been dropped at any stage even at the planning stage.
Yeah, for example, amstrad made the cpc manuals when the computer is in production in factory.
Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 01:50, 11 September 17
AA definitely didn't have screen shots. They used illustrations any time they printed off one of their (many) features on the game.
I'm forever amused that so many people treat SFII like it was a conspiracy theory or something. It really wasn't. It was business. By the time Street Fighter II was due for release on the 8bit markets, The Amstrad wasn't shifting units like it had been, be it on a hardware or software level.
Had it done so, it more than likely would have been a lazy Speccy port and 128k only just to save time.
You can't know what happend. Indiana jones of megadrive is finished and u.s gold never sold it.
Another example, back in the 90 a a sonic game was planned by u.s gold in amstrad cpc but its cancelled because sega cancell the license to u.s gold due to megadrive.
Frankly, not. Never thought of STII on the CPC as a kind of conspiracy... oh my, really not. If this was my kind of thinking I should had it this way since the day the CPC was released, in respect to other machines ;-) More likely I too think at the end it was a business and market choice. That said, more simply: I don't think the Amstrad version was scrapped at the beginning/planning, with all the buzz activated (by U.S. Gold itself too) around that porting and Amstrad games previous story on that label. Just this. Very simply. No conspiracy at all J
And maybe my interest in understating the episode is just due to my great expectations at the time for that version and maybe for the great possibility (to me) that version could have in respect to the Speccy and CBM64 ones, considering how Final Fight on CPC was good for me.
Also, my point of view is that they could have scrapped the CPC version in a development (already began) phase when they started having serious doubts about the market success due to the fact that printing, packaging, copying and distributing would perhaps cost quite much more than coding, so maybe it was preferred to leave it alone even if in an advanced coding/developing. Gaming history has other certified examples of game completely released, also just specific ports, never released on the market. Nothing strange, nothing new, no conspiracy. Just business-market considerations. That's all ;) [size=78%] [/size]
By the way, the MSX version was ever officially released? For what I know the only official 8-bit portings of the game released was the Speccy, C64, Master System (Brazil only) and GameBoy. Is that correct?
Quote from: dragon on 08:07, 11 September 17
Yeah, for example, amstrad made the cpc manuals when the computer is in production in factory.
You can't know what happend. Indiana jones of megadrive is finished and u.s gold never sold it.
Another example, back in the 90 a a sonic game was planned by u.s gold in amstrad cpc but its cancelled because sega cancell the license to u.s gold due to megadrive.
I heard something else : Sega wanted an Amiga only version, and us gold wanted to make the game on Atari ST, CPC, C64, et so on.....
Quote from: dlfrsilver on 09:05, 11 September 17
I heard something else : Sega wanted an Amiga only version, and us gold wanted to make the game on Atari ST, CPC, C64, et so on.....
There is a magazine in u.k back in the 90, that tell u.s gold have announce the game to all 8 bits plataforms.
View the magazine secrion
https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(home_computers) (https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(home_computers))
Quote from: dragon on 08:07, 11 September 17
You can't know what happend. Indiana jones of megadrive is finished and u.s gold never sold it.
Another example, back in the 90 a a sonic game was planned by u.s gold in amstrad cpc but its cancelled because sega cancell the license to u.s gold due to megadrive.
That works both ways. You can't know for sure that an Amstrad version was ever written and is sitting in a vault somewhere either. 😉
I'm fairly certain we'd have known by now if it was.
Quote from: felow on 08:54, 11 September 17
By the way, the MSX version was ever officially released? For what I know the only official 8-bit portings of the game released was the Speccy, C64, Master System (Brazil only) and GameBoy. Is that correct?
Way beyond the MSX's commercial life. In fact many later MSX releases of big games were made for the Spanish market and were the laziest ports of Speccy games you can imagine. I think it's Gemini Wing that is so bad it still has the Kempston joystick option on the menu. Games literally ported in a day!
Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 11:57, 11 September 17
I'm fairly certain we'd have known by now if it was.
All the buzz came from the magazines, mainly AA as well. US Gold weren't pushing it, AA were desperate for column inches to fill the magazine.
It's also not like Toki where the CPC version was mentioned on the magazine adverts and there were screenshots. Street Fighter 2 was pure vapourware.
Quote from: chinnyhill10 on 15:36, 11 September 17
All the buzz came from the magazines, mainly AA as well. US Gold weren't pushing it, AA were desperate for column inches to fill the magazine.
Again, so much this.
What people tend to forget was when we went up to our games/record shops and asked about it, they were none the wiser. Now if the distributors of the games can't give the stores any further information about release dates to, y'know, HELP SELL the games, then you can take it to the bank that it's either been heavily delayed, or just cancelled. That's just business.
Quote from: chinnyhill10 on 15:34, 11 September 17
Way beyond the MSX's commercial life. In fact many later MSX releases of big games were made for the Spanish market and were the laziest ports of Speccy games you can imagine. I think it's Gemini Wing that is so bad it still has the Kempston joystick option on the menu. Games literally ported in a day!
This then confirms the only 8bit official portings were for C64, Spectrum, Master System and Gameboy right?
Quote from: felow on 19:48, 11 September 17
This then confirms the only 8bit official portings were for C64, Spectrum, Master System and Gameboy right?
And PC Engine ;D
Quote from: Joseman on 20:25, 11 September 17
And PC Engine ;D
Pc engine looks great. Its a shame the plus range can't beat it developed more later. :picard2:
But can the PC-Engine really be consdiered an 8bit amchine considering its 16-bit video color and controller?
Also: so the following NES porting is actually a non-official/pirate?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hQjFpGB6_k
The nes have a lot of street fighter pirates, but is curious, the chinese guys always put the worst version the 12 people in alliexpress cartridges jaja.
In late 92 SF2 was announded on many computers from speccy to amiga & pc. Even the ST release was very late. So the 8 bits one...
Is mercs the last cpc game from usgold ?
Robocop 3, toki, superski 2, megatwins, spiderman, judge dredd (with a cpc picture on the packaging back) ... We saw many amstrad annoucements without any release. Even Parasol Stars for c64 is missing (the coder would have been robbed, this is the official reason :picard: [size=78%] ).[/size]
In the indiana jones fate of atlantis manual there are ST loadings instructions but the ST release was canceled too.
I read on AA that in 92 in UK more cpc games were sold than snes one. Ok, it was probably mainly 3£ budget games or compilations and the snes only appeared on the market in April but there were still a really market. In France, surface granted to cpc games was often more important than amiga+st+pc together even with the lack of news.
Even is the speccy release was'nt finished, was it Tiertex behind ? In AA i read that the cpc authors were french, but us gold didn't work with french people before.
Quote from: kawickboy on 10:46, 26 September 17
Is mercs the last cpc game from usgold ?
I've a feeling Shadow Dancer and Alien Storm came out after Mercs, but I'm open to correction on that.
The gap between all those releases certainly wouldn't have been that big.
Did a little poking around. According to AA Reviews.
Shadow Dancer got reviewed in AA70.
MERCS got reviewed in AA 73.
Alien Storm got reviewed in AA 75.
Now to be fair, that was probably around the time the mag got their copies and doesn't necessarily indicate an accurate release time. I'd say they all came out around about the same time, to be honest. But I think that was the last of the US Gold releases for the CPC.
MERCS and Alien Storm were both Tiertex, Shadow Dancer was Images Software.
I think it might have been Megasports or G-Loc
Quote from: kawickboy on 10:46, 26 September 17
Is mercs the last cpc game from usgold ?
I reckon it was
Bonanza Bros.
Quote from: Nich on 21:06, 26 September 17
I reckon it was Bonanza Bros.
Bonanza Bros was released in 91...
Quote from: ukmarkh on 21:12, 26 September 17
Bonanza Bros was released in 91...
Actually Nich has a point here. It was actually released on 8bit formats in mid '92. The 8bits were the last to see it as Sega focused on getting it on the Megadrive first. Also appears it was the last US Gold full priced released that AA had reviewed.
Crash had previews of it in October '91, but it was a long way from being finished.
Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 01:50, 27 September 17
Actually Nich has a point here. It was actually released on 8bit formats in mid '92. The 8bits were the last to see it as Sega focused on getting it on the Megadrive first. Also appears it was the last US Gold full priced released that AA had reviewed.
Crash had previews of it in October '91, but it was a long way from being finished.
Just noticed Sinclair User reviewed it in Jul, 1992 and G-Loc in Feb 1992, so definitely looks like Bonanza Bros is the one, thx Nich
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
In France, in A100%, Shadow Dancer were reviewed on june 91, alien storm/g-loc/final fight on Christmas 91 and Mercs (probably forgotten somewhere) on august 92.
Bonanza Bros in automn 92.
Magazines are never an accurate source of when a game came out either as it's all dependent on when they get their review copies. More often, I ended up getting some games before the AA reviews came out. Chase HQ, P47 and Rainbow Islands were three classic examples.
I bought those on the premise of enjoying them in the arcades. But they were definitely out 1-2 months before AA reviewed them.
I would suspect that Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was the last new release from US Gold, although it may have only been released in France where it appears to have been distributed by Ubisoft... The disk label on CPC-Power has US Gold on it though.
ubi soft was lucasarts french distributor.
Just spotted that cpcrulez has an image of the UK cassette version, I guess it must have come out here as well.
Quote from: Skunkfish on 10:51, 08 December 17
I would suspect that Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was the last new release from US Gold, although it may have only been released in France where it appears to have been distributed by Ubisoft... The disk label on CPC-Power has US Gold on it though.
U.S.Gold was its own distributor. it's Indy 4, but there's very low chances that ubisoft got the distribution of this title when U.S.Gold could do it alone.
Nightshift was handled by ubisoft wasn't it ?
Quote from: kawickboy on 15:40, 11 December 17
Nightshift was handled by ubisoft wasn't it ?
No that was LuBlu Entertainment.
http://cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=9250
(Come on, I had to). ::)