Bill Loguidice's Blog, page 79
November 14, 2017
The first commercial Star Wars videogame is not what you think
In early 1977, the RCA Studio II became only the second programmable videogame console released, just after the late 1976 release of the Fairchild Video Entertainment System (VES/Channel F) and several months before the mid-1977 release of the Atari Video Computer System (VCS/2600). To put it simply, the RCA Studio II was obsolete before it was released, with onboard keyboard controls and crude black and white graphics. Needless to say, the RCA Studio II was one of the first true console failures, discontinued just a year after its release and with only 10 games to its credit (not counting the 5 games and apps that were built-in).
Interestingly, the technology did live on a bit longer outside the US, with several clone systems making their appearance. These systems sometimes featured color and became outlets for some of the Studio II’s in-development, previously unreleased titles. I highly recommend you check out the full AtariAge thread on this class of systems, but one of the more interesting analyses was on a Star Wars title, literally called Star Wars, which you can see some extra info on here (and yes, there was no pretending it wasn’t based on the movie!).
Now, of course, this was not an officially licensed title, but similar to the strategy-based Star Trek games popular throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, the game made liberal use of someone else’s IP. The difference here is that most of those Star Trek games rarely went so far as to call themselves Star Trek.
Startrek, aka Star Trek, from 1978 for the Compucolor, certainly did push some IP boundaries, however.
The packaging for Startrek, aka Star Trek, for the Compucolor.
While it’s safe to say that the 1982 release of the Atari 2600 Parker Brothers title, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, was the first officially licensed Star Wars game, it’s interesting that as far back as 1977 – and on the Studio II of all places – the first home recreation of one of the classic movie scenes was depicted, albeit crudely. Of course, Exidy’s Star Fire, would cross a similar line visually in the arcade in 1979, but wasn’t quite so bold as to replace “Fire” with “Wars.”
Note: If you’re interested in reading more about videogame history, be sure to check out one of my books, Vintage Game Consoles: An Inside Look at Apple, Atari, Commodore, Nintendo, and the Greatest Gaming Platforms of All Time.
Final Note: Be sure to check out Benj Edwards’ excellent feature on one of the first female game programmers who did pioneering work on the Studio II. It puts this hard-to-love console in a new light.
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November 9, 2017
The Games Workshop Sale – Up to 90% off great PC games!
The Games Workshop Sale just launched in the Humble Store and will be live through Monday, November 13 at 10 a.m. Pacific time.
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November 8, 2017
Name your own price for Humble Comics Bundle: Sex & Science by Top Cow
Click here for the link. The offer expires 2017-11-22 11:00:00 PST.
Sex and science positive. Top Cow is back with more top-rated comics, and this time, it’s getting hot and heavy. (You’re thinking of boiling points and heavy metals, right?) Get volumes of Sunstone, Aphrodite IX, Blood Stain, Think Tank, and more. Sex and science go together like… reading comics and supporting charity! Yeah.
Pay what you want. All together, these comics would cost over $366. Here at Humble Bundle, you choose the price and increase your contribution to upgrade your bundle! This bundle has a minimum $1 purchase.
Read them anywhere. These comics are available in multiple formats including CBZ, PDF, and ePub, so they work on your computer, e-readers, iPads, cell phones, and a wide array of mobile devices! Instructions and a list of recommended reading programs can be found here.
Support charity. Choose where the money goes – between the publisher, RAINN, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, and, if you’d like, a charity of your choice via the PayPal Giving Fund. If you like what we do, you can leave us a Humble Tip too!
The post appeared first on Armchair Arcade.
In the simplest terms, what your TV needs to take advantage of Xbox One X and PS4 Pro
I’ve been seeing a lot of confusion on social media about why not every feature of powerful consoles like the just released Microsoft Xbox One X, as well as the Sony PlayStation 4 Pro (PS4 Pro), are supported on recent 4K TVs. I’d like to quickly clear some of that up.
Microsoft’s Xbox One X.
First off, every 4K TV supports 4K resolution, which is 3840 pixels × 2160 lines. Compare that to standard HDTVs that support 1080p resolution, which is 1920 pixels x 1080 lines (some smaller TVs still only do 720p resolution, which is 1280 pixels x 720 lines). Obviously, a 4K TV has a nice resolution bump, but, although still beautiful, can sometimes be hard to notice with even the largest televisions considering how far many of us sit from our displays.
Resolution is not the only piece of the puzzle, however. At its simplest, HDR, which stands for High Dynamic Range, is a way to achieve a far greater color gamut than we’ve previously been used to. Many people – including me – claim that HDR is more important than the resolution bump, for instance, making colors pop and bringing out amazing details in shadows. In fact, you can have 1080p HDR content that looks spectacular. Both the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro have support for 4K HDR games and video.
Sony’s PS4 Pro
Unfortunately, not every 4K TV – particularly older 4K TVs or today’s less expensive 4K TVs – support HDR (side note, Dolby Vision is a proprietary HDR-like standard that is even better, but not as widely supported, but is always paired with HDR for the best of both worlds). That means when you break out your shiny new Xbox One X or PS4 Pro and it tests your TV’s feature-set, there will be a lot of non-resolution checkboxes that are crossed out.
As for me, I have an older Vizio 4K TV in our master bedroom that only has 4K resolution. That’s not that important because it’s mostly used for watching a little late night TV before falling asleep. Over the summer, after a good bit of research, I bought a new family room TV, an LG, that supports 4K and HDR/Dolby Vision (and paired it with a good Bose surround sound system; sound is also an important factor with today’s media, and even our master bedroom TV has a decent sound bar). Since we’re now cord cutters, I paired it off with an Apple TV 4K, which supports HDR/Dolby Vision. With such perspective, I can understand why people might be frustrated that their primary 4K TV doesn’t support the wider color gamut.
The LG 75SJ8570 supports both HDR and Dolby Vision
An important final point, of course, is that, as with the slow transition from standard definition TV (SDTV) to HDTV, you specifically need content designed for 4K/HDR/Dolby Vision to take advantage of it. While many Xbox One X and PS4 Pro games support improved resolution and/or color gamut, many others don’t. The same thing with streaming video and even Blu-Rays, i.e., you specifically need a service and/or content that is clearly labeled as supporting 4K/HDR (and, among consoles, only the Xbox One S and X support 4K/HDR Blu-Rays).
So, what do you do if you have a TV that doesn’t support the latest and great standards? The good news is is that consoles like the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro provide other performance benefits outside of resolution or color. This can take the form of things like improved frame rate or dynamic resolution scaling. It’s not ideal if you were counting on your TV to fully support the latest and greatest technology, but obviously not a total loss.
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November 7, 2017
Play-Asia.com early Black Friday Sale – Up to 75% off!
Yes, it’s that time of year again and Play-Asia.com is rolling out their Early Black Friday Sale which is NOW LIVE!
They have some great gift ideas, deals, and steals with super savings of up to 75% off and more… Discounts on Games, Digital, Toys, Electronics, and Lifestyle products.
Each week they will be adding lots of new discounts and special deals, so stay tuned throughout the sale. Next week they will be offering a special deal on Play-Asia.com Exclusives, plus lots more.
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Name your own price Humble Strategy Simulator Bundle
Click here for the link. Offer expires 2017-11-21 11:00:00 PST.
Choose your strategy. We’ve strategically assembled a bundle of games for you to enjoy! Get Cities: Skylines Deluxe Edition, Plague Inc: Evolved, Mad Games Tycoon, and more strategy simulator games to keep you entertained.
Pay what you want. Normally, the total cost for these games is as much as $162. Here at Humble Bundle, though, you choose the price!
Redeem on Steam. All of the games in this bundle are available on Steam for Windows, and some for Mac and Linux too. Several of the games are also available DRM-free. Please check out the full system requirements here prior to purchasing.
Support charity. Choose where the money goes – between the developers and, if you’d like, a charity of your choice via the PayPal Giving Fund. If you like the bundle or like what we do, you can leave us a Humble Tip too!
The post appeared first on Armchair Arcade.
Did the Atari 7800 Pro System beat the Sega Master System in the US?
For the longest time it’s been accepted more or less as fact that the Atari 7800 sold 3.77 million consoles (recently lowered to 3.5 million on Wikipedia with no source), with a large proportion of that in the US (or sometimes indicated as JUST the US numbers). Similarly, the Sega Master System (SMS) was said to have sold around 2 million units in the US, making up part of the total of 13 million units or so sold worldwide. This disparity always seemed a bit strange to me because I was of course around when both of those consoles were struggling to compete against the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
The Atari 7800. Source: Evan-Amos
My memory of the time was that in the US, the Atari 7800 was available at fewer retailers, had fewer games, had fewer high profile games, had far less advertising, and had far less magazine coverage (game reviews and the like). While both consoles had a tiny fraction of the sales and presence of the NES, it just didn’t seem likely that the 7800 would outsell the SMS given the other imbalances. Compounding the idea that the 7800 overtook the SMS was the fact that Atari’s 2600jr and XEGS consoles were both for sale wholly or for the better part of this generation of systems’ primes.
Fortunately, in a thread on AtariAge, it looks like this cognitive dissonance has been resolved. The 3.77 million consoles sold number is simply wrong.
In that AtariAge thread, forum goer mr-me has provided some of the best analysis of the available numbers. It’s worth it to read-through the entire thread, but long story short, the 3 million+ number that’s been commonly given is clearly for combined console and cartridge sales. It appears that worldwide, let alone North America or just the US, the 7800 likely sold only a little over 1 million total consoles from 1986 – 1990. In that same time period, about 2.6 million Atari 7800 cartridges were sold, creating a 5:2 cartridge-to-console attach rate (versus 6:1 on the NES and Sega sides). So that’s where the mysterious 3.77 million number came from.
In summary, even if we lower the SMS numbers a bit, it’s still not going to have sold as few consoles as the 7800. This makes sense given the 7800’s smaller worldwide game library (~59 games versus the SMS library of ~341, and discounting the 7800’s backwards compatibility with Atari 2600 games) and all the other factors against that I previously discussed.
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November 6, 2017
Racing game sale – up to 85% off!
The Racing Sale just launched in the Humble Store on Monday, November 6 at 10 a.m. Pacific time! The sale will be live through Friday, November 10 at 10 a.m. Pacific time.
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Pay what you want for Humble Book Bundle: Start a Startup by Wiley
Startup your engines. Oh, we know you’ve got the next great idea. It’s just a question of getting started! This ebook bundle from Wiley will be your guide as you begin your very own business venture. Get Starting a Tech Business: A Practical Guide for Anyone Creating or Designing Applications or Software; The Startup Checklist: 25 Steps to a Scalable, High-Growth Business; The Other “F” Word: How Smart Leaders, Teams, and Entrepreneurs Put Failure to Work; and lots more.
Here’s the link. Offer expires 2017-11-20 11:00:00 PST.
Pay what you want. All together, these books would cost over $432. Here at Humble Bundle, you choose the price and increase your contribution to upgrade your bundle! This bundle has a minimum $1 purchase.
Read them anywhere. These books are available in PDF and ePUB formats, meaning you can read them anywhere at any time. The Four Lenses of Innovation and Startup Weekend are also available in MOBI format. Instructions and a list of recommended reading programs can be found here.
Support charity. Choose where the money goes – between the publisher, Wiley; Code.org; and, if you’d like, a charity of your choice via the PayPal Giving Fund. If you like what we do, you can leave us a Humble Tip too!
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The December Humble Monthly Early Unlock is now available!
The Humble Monthly for November just released, which means it’s time for the new Early Unlock game! The Early Unlock game for December is H1Z1 + in-game crates! Humble Monthly subscribers can get the game right away for $12, plus more games to come on Friday, December 1 at 10 a.m. Pacific time.
We’ve recently added 5 new games to the Humble Trove: AI War Collection, Wilmot’s Warehouse, Bionic Dues, The Last Federation, and Starward Rogue. The Trove gives subscribers ongoing access to our full catalog of Humble Originals and other DRM-free titles.
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