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[Wonko_C]

I've been on a Genesis kick recently and I remember there were several games with that phrase in their title. I guess it's pretty much self-explanatory: SEGA themselves did those versions of the original games (most of them arcade conversions, which were some of the best conversions of their time. Amazingly, Ghouls 'N Ghosts has better-sounding music than the arcade version!).

What was the reasoning behind this? Why did SEGA themselves do the conversions instead of their respective owners? It also makes me wonder if companies like Capcom themselves ported Strider to the Genesis would it have ended up better or worse than what we got. One thing is for sure: Multiplatform was much more interesting in those days.

 

[Dwayne]

Sega themselves porting stuff to their console. Happened a ton with Master System. I guess developers were skeptical.

 

[SegaShack]

They had staff program the arcade games for home release.

 

[AzureSkies]

Sega themselves porting stuff to their console. Happened a ton with Master System. I guess developers were skeptical.

Yeah, SEGA ported a lot of third party arcade games in the master system days, also equally as well as the Genesis ports.

 

[MrCunningham]

Sega themselves porting stuff to their console. Happened a ton with Master System. I guess developers were skeptical.

Nope. Nintendo had a monopoly on third party developers back in the 8-bit and early 16-bit days. Third party developers that signed a contract with Nintendo were prohibited from developing games for competing consoles like the Sega Master System or the Sega Genesis/ Sega Mega Drive early in its lifecycle.

Because of this, the Sega Master System was really barren when it came to third party games, and the only real third party developers Sega had back then were a few UK developers (like Flying Edge) and the obscure Japanese developers. Sega would have to pick up the licenses themselves from third party developers and make their own ports internally. There were quite a few games reprogrammed by Sega on the Master System, like Double Dragon, Ninja Gaiden and Ghost Busters. ON the Genesis there was also Ghouls n' Ghosts and Final Fight on the Sega CD that were ported by Sega.

In the early 90's the American FTC ( Federal Trade Commission) cracked down on Nintendo for breaking antitrust laws and running a monopoly in the games industry. This forced Nintendo to take their stranglehold of third party developers and allow third parties to develop games for competing consoles like the Genesis. It really worked in Sega's favor.

 

[IrishNinja]

aside: best-GAF welcomes you all <3

 

[Krejlooc]

Because of this, the Sega Master System was really barren early on when it came to third party games

FIFY

The Sega 8-bit format lasted until 1998. The period when the SMS had poor 3rd party relations was from 1986 till about 1991. The second half of it's life, enjoyed mainly in Europe and Brazil, saw many third party games, particularly from western devs.

 

[Ragnarok]

A lot of the Sega ports ended up being really good IMO so I ain't complaining

 

[Krejlooc]

A lot of the Sega ports ended up being really good IMO so I ain't complaining

They also inspired a similar line of games from Hudson Soft and NEC for it's PC Engine based around many of the same games, including:

Which is an incredibly disappointing port, especially surrounding its circumstances (super grafx -> PC Engine Duo -> Arcade Card). But they made up for it with Daimakaimura, which shits all over Sega's conversion on the Genesis. Forgotten Worlds is also one of these games, although the conversions were roughly equal.

Capcom's first internally developed game for Sega's console was Street Fighter II' - originally, Capcom had entered into deals with NEC Avenue and Sega to license the game for them to produce ala Daimakaimura. NEC Avenue actually did produce and release their version of Street Fighter II' (which is awesome for the system) but, while Sega had developed a version for the Genesis, Capcom came in midway through and dramatically changed development.

 

[Mask]

Sometimes the original company doesn't want to bother porting the game, or don't think it's worth porting the game. Hence, SEGA themselves port the game at their own cost.

Still happens today. Sony porting Borderlands 2 to Vita is a prime example.

 

[stuminus3]

This was common back in those days, games got licensed to other companies to port all the time in the 1980s. It's why US Gold were able to publish their own "Strider II" game that was nothing to do with Capcom. It was very common on home computers, less so on consoles (at least by the 16 bit era).

 

[Wonko_C]

Nope. Nintendo had a monopoly on third party developers back in the 8-bit and early 16-bit days. Third party developers that signed a contract with Nintendo were prohibited from developing games for competing consoles like the Sega Master System or the Sega Genesis/ Sega Mega Drive early in its lifecycle.

Because of this, the Sega Master System was really barren when it came to third party games, and the only real third party developers Sega had back then were a few UK developers (like Flying Edge) and the obscure Japanese developers. Sega would have to pick up the licenses themselves from third party developers and make their own ports internally. There were quite a few games reprogrammed by Sega on the Master System, like Double Dragon, Ninja Gaiden and Ghost Busters. ON the Genesis there was also Ghouls n' Ghosts and Final Fight on the Sega CD that were ported by Sega.

In the early 90's the American FTC ( Federal Trade Commission) cracked down on Nintendo for breaking antitrust laws and running a monopoly in the games industry. This forced Nintendo to take their stranglehold of third party developers and allow third parties to develop games for competing consoles like the Genesis. It really worked in Sega's favor.

So they found a loophole and decided to exploit it, basically? To think they once had the manpower to do home conversions alongside their own games.

Curiously, Popful Mail on SCD was reprogrammed by SEGA too, while the Falcom original was made for the PC98 IIRC.

 

[Krejlooc]

So they found a loophole and decided to exploit it, basically? To think they once had the manpower to do home conversions alongside their own games.

Curiously, Popful Mail on SCD was reprogrammed by SEGA too, while the Falcom original was made for the PC98 IIRC.

Popful Mail was produced by Sega Falcom, as a joint collaboration between Sega and Falcom. It was originally going to be a conversion of Popful Mail into a game called Sister Sonic, but a write in campaign convinced the companies to release it as a massively updated and expanded Popful Mail (that shames all the other versions).

Most of the games on the Sega 8-bit from Sega came from joint ventures with outside teams, like SIMS, Ancient, Aspect, Treasure, Westone, Alpha Denshi, Arc, Vic Tokai, Hertz, Sanritsu, Alcom or Compile. These teams worked as Shadow Teams not unlike TOSE. Most of Sega's in-house talent worked in the Arcades (although notable conversion teams, like Yuji Naka's team, did exist).

 

[jackal27]

Nope. Nintendo had a monopoly on third party developers back in the 8-bit and early 16-bit days. Third party developers that signed a contract with Nintendo were prohibited from developing games for competing consoles like the Sega Master System or the Sega Genesis/ Sega Mega Drive early in its lifecycle.

Because of this, the Sega Master System was really barren when it came to third party games, and the only real third party developers Sega had back then were a few UK developers (like Flying Edge) and the obscure Japanese developers. Sega would have to pick up the licenses themselves from third party developers and make their own ports internally. There were quite a few games reprogrammed by Sega on the Master System, like Double Dragon, Ninja Gaiden and Ghost Busters. ON the Genesis there was also Ghouls n' Ghosts and Final Fight on the Sega CD that were ported by Sega.

In the early 90's the American FTC ( Federal Trade Commission) cracked down on Nintendo for breaking antitrust laws and running a monopoly in the games industry. This forced Nintendo to take their stranglehold of third party developers and allow third parties to develop games for competing consoles like the Genesis. It really worked in Sega's favor.

Now Nintendo is the one struggling with 3rd party games and publishing them themselves. I love you Nintendo, but what goes around...

 

[Krejlooc]

Now Nintendo is the one struggling with 3rd party games and publishing them themselves. I love you Nintendo, but what goes around...

What you are reading would be a major reason they are still struggling today.

 

[Krejlooc]

Incidentally, the NES Donkey Kong is a reprogrammed game by Nintendo themselves. Nintendo did not actually create the Arcade version of Donkey Kong, Ikegami Co did as a shadow team for Nintendo. This is why Nintendo never re-releases the Arcade version of Donkey Kong, instead always porting the NES version.

 

[Ramune]

Popful Mail was produced by Sega Falcom, as a joint collaboration between Sega and Falcom. It was originally going to be a conversion of Popful Mail into a game called Sister Sonic, but a write in campaign convinced the companies to release it as a massively updated and expanded Popful Mail (that shames all the other versions).

Most of the games on the Sega 8-bit from Sega came from joint ventures with outside teams, like SIMS, Ancient, Aspect, Treasure, Westone, Alpha Denshi, Arc, Vic Tokai, Hertz, Sanritsu, Alcom or Compile. These teams worked as Shadow Teams not unlike TOSE. Most of Sega's in-house talent worked in the Arcades (although notable conversion teams, like Yuji Naka's team, did exist).

Another thing with Sega Falcom, was that Ys IV was almost released on the Mega CD as the definitive version of the game, but I forgot what happened between Sega and Falcom, but it was cancelled in the end.

Popful Mail also had a Super Famicom version (done by Falcom) in addition to a PC engine Super CD release (done by NEC), in addition to the original PC-98 verson. All versions, while sharing the same characters amd concepts, are wildly different. Interesting times back then.

 

[liquidtmd]

Ironically Nintendo nowadays would absolutely benefit the most from porting third party output and probably do quite a good job.

But...even with the semi pickup of the Wii U, I suspect Nintendo would rather let it tank than investigate doing this

 

[MrCunningham]

FIFY

The Sega 8-bit format lasted until 1998. The period when the SMS had poor 3rd party relations was from 1986 till about 1991. The second half of it's life, enjoyed mainly in Europe and Brazil, saw many third party games, particularly from western devs.

Thanks for the correction. I'm not really familiar with the third party games that were released in the UK/ Europe and Brazil after 1990.

So they found a loophole and decided to exploit it, basically? To think they once had the manpower to do home conversions alongside their own games.

Yup, Nintendo contracts were some of the most restrictive that the game industry has ever seen back then. Not only did they prohibit publishers from developing for competing consoles by they also limited the number of games a publisher could release per year. This is why companies like Konami had the "Ultra Games" brand. That was another loophole to get around their yearly limit of published games.

Curiously, Popful Mail on SCD was reprogrammed by SEGA too, and the Falcom original was made for the PC98 IIRC.

The first game Capcom actually ported to the Genesis was Street Fighter II': Special Champion Edition, which was released in 1993. Before that, Sega was doing all of Capcoms ports on the Mega Drive/ Genesis, Sega ported all the following:

Ghouls 'N Ghosts
Forgotten Worlds
Strider
MERCS
Chiki Chiki Boys
Final Fight CD

Ghouls 'N Ghosts and Final Fight are fantastic ports, and the rest were all solid too. They also did Popful Mail as well, not sure what the story is on that, but Popful is one of the best games on the Sega CD.

And as far as I know, Sega also handled ports for Truxton, Dynamite Duke and Toki amongst a few others. Sega's teams were doing a lot of double duty by porting other publishers works to the console as well as developing their own original software. And the list of games they ported to the Master System was even bigger.

 

[sixteen-bit]

Yuji Naka actually did the G'nG port, lol

 

[Jamix012]

Doesn't this go even further back, really? Didn't Atari do their own 2600 port of Pac Man? Isn't it something to do with the rights of the arcade not being tied to their original developers? That's how Mario Bros. ended up on the Atari 7800 I think.

Incidentally, the NES Donkey Kong is a reprogrammed game by Nintendo themselves. Nintendo did not actually create the Arcade version of Donkey Kong, Ikegami Co did as a shadow team for Nintendo. This is why Nintendo never re-releases the Arcade version of Donkey Kong, instead always porting the NES version.

What about the Arcade version on Donkey Kong 64?

 

[driver116]

Now Nintendo is the one struggling with 3rd party games and publishing them themselves. I love you Nintendo, but what goes around...

Yeah, I didn't like this about Nintendo when I found out about it.

 

[Yoshi]

Incidentally, the NES Donkey Kong is a reprogrammed game by Nintendo themselves. Nintendo did not actually create the Arcade version of Donkey Kong, Ikegami Co did as a shadow team for Nintendo. This is why Nintendo never re-releases the Arcade version of Donkey Kong, instead always porting the NES version.

DK64 features the original, does it not?

 

[Krejlooc]

Doesn't this go even further back, really? Didn't Atari do their own 2600 port of Pac Man? Isn't it something to do with the rights of the arcade not being tied to their original developers? That's how Mario Bros. ended up on the Atari 7800 I think.



What about the Arcade version on Donkey Kong 64?

DK64 features the original, does it not?

Dk in dk64 actually isnt emulation, its a port by rare that tries to be as arcade perfect as possible.

 

[Rich!]

DK64 features the original, does it not?

Nope. Its coded from scratch by Rare.

 

[kinn]

Capcom's first internally developed game for Sega's console was Street Fighter II' - originally, Capcom had entered into deals with NEC Avenue and Sega to license the game for them to produce ala Daimakaimura. NEC Avenue actually did produce and release their version of Street Fighter II' (which is awesome for the system) but, while Sega had developed a version for the Genesis, Capcom came in midway through and dramatically changed development.

Is the Sega developed one the one we saw first that had a chunky black border at the top where the energy bars etc were and had smaller sprites and even had Blankas name misspelled as Branka!?

Would have loved to have played that version.

 

[Krejlooc]

Is the Sega developed one the one we saw first that had a chunky black border at the top where the energy bars etc were and had smaller sprites and even had Blankas name misspelled as Branka!?

Would have loved to have played that version.

That was an early version, but yep. Eventually most of that got fixed before Capcom came in and redid it. Sega's version also had better music.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Welp, considering that's still around the time third parties were threatened by Nintendo if they were to dare put their products out on a competing system. This was a way around it.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Doesn't this go even further back, really? Didn't Atari do their own 2600 port of Pac Man? Isn't it something to do with the rights of the arcade not being tied to their original developers? That's how Mario Bros. ended up on the Atari 7800 I think.

Back then Namco, Taito, NIntendo, Sega, and Midway weren't publishing their console games, so Atari and others handled it. Atari published Mario Bros well before the NES existed, so I guess they still had the rights to do so with the 7800.

 

[SeventhSon]

Very well answered already re: Nintendo and restrictive licensing, and it's been noted that this sort of "reverse" licensing was fairly common in those times. NEC licensed Street Fighter II CE for the PC-Engine, for example, and did the port itself, and the reason it was never released in NA was NEC didn't want to pay the much higher fee to Capcom for the region.

Edit: Krejlooc touched upon this above.

 

[fantastico]

This was common back in those days, games got licensed to other companies to port all the time in the 1980s. It's why US Gold were able to publish their own "Strider II" game that was nothing to do with Capcom. It was very common on home computers, less so on consoles (at least by the 16 bit era).

Yup, US Gold also released a sequel to Street Fighter called Human Killing Machine on home computers. As I remember it wasn't quite as good as Street Fighter II

 

[sixteen-bit]

Yup, US Gold also released a sequel to Street Fighter called Human Killing Machine on home computers. As I remember it wasn't quite as good as Street Fighter II

I remember seeing a review for that ages ago (Ashens?). It looked terrible.

 

[Krejlooc]

Yup, US Gold also released a sequel to Street Fighter called Human Killing Machine on home computers. As I remember it wasn't quite as good as Street Fighter II

lol what an understatement

 

[norealmx]

Now Nintendo is the one struggling with 3rd party games and publishing them themselves. I love you Nintendo, but what goes around...

So, the industry is basically handled by a bunch of grunge-holding teenagers?

 

[Original Famous Ray]

That was an early version, but yep. Eventually most of that got fixed before Capcom came in and redid it. Sega's version also had better music.

Just watched a video of the early version. Those drum beats are mega loud! They do sound like the arcade version though. Shame they couldn't have those drums in the final version.

 

[SkylineRKR]

I thought the likes of Flying Edge were aliases created by Acclaim to develop for non-Nintendo systems.

Nintendo also had a rule that they only allowed a set amount of games per third party per year or something, this meant Konami would use the Ultra brand for some of their games as well.

Ridiculous, like 'Bungie here, we want to release Destiny in September'. Sony: 'nope, it would be your sixth game, bugger off'.

 

[SeventhSon]

So, the industry is basically handled by a bunch of grunge-holding teenagers?

It's more complex than that, publishers will go where money can be made. So things like hardware (for multiplatform engines), install base, and royalties matter, and while there may be lingering "bad blood" over Nintendo from the past, those bottom line factors matter most; I believe Nintendo had the highest licensing fees in the GameCube era, despite being third place, for example.

 

[lazygecko]

Capcom was just really, really reluctant on personally developing anything for Sega hardware for whatever reason. Apparently the Capcom executives had a very close relationship with their Nintendo counterparts so that might have something to do with this.

You can sort of tell from the entire Capcom library on the Genesis, from the first arcade ports in the late 80's to the Punisher port in 1995. You can't really find any quirks that bind them all together and make you think "yep, this is a Capcom game", like you could with Konami. I think this is especially noticeable on the sound which is wildly different between each and every game. Capcom outsourced all of their Genesis games, though it seems only the first couple of arcade ports and the late Punisher ports are confirmed as being such.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Capcom was just really, really reluctant on personally developing anything for Sega hardware for whatever reason. Apparently the Capcom executives had a very close relationship with their Nintendo counterparts so that might have something to do with this.

You can sort of tell from the entire Capcom library on the Genesis, from the first arcade ports in the late 80's to the Punisher port in 1995. You can't really find any quirks that bind them all together and make you think "yep, this is a Capcom game", like you could with Konami. I think this is especially noticeable on the sound which is wildly different between each and every game. Capcom outsourced all of their Genesis games, though it seems only the first couple of arcade ports and the late Punisher ports are confirmed as being such.

It wasn't just Sega.

Capcom also didn't do anything for SF2 on PC and Amiga. US Gold got the license but didn't get anything else. They had to create the game from scratch, probably with an arcade machine running in the office to look at. Which resulted in the fucking worst game of all time (SF2 on Amiga).

 

[Krejlooc]

Capcom was just really, really reluctant on personally developing anything for Sega hardware for whatever reason. Apparently the Capcom executives had a very close relationship with their Nintendo counterparts so that might have something to do with this.

You can sort of tell from the entire Capcom library on the Genesis, from the first arcade ports in the late 80's to the Punisher port in 1995. You can't really find any quirks that bind them all together and make you think "yep, this is a Capcom game", like you could with Konami. I think this is especially noticeable on the sound which is wildly different between each and every game. Capcom outsourced all of their Genesis games, though it seems only the first couple of arcade ports and the late Punisher ports are confirmed as being such.

Part of this is because Konami had a dedicated Sega Genesis team that was established early on (and were very talented), but as for sound, capcom switched sound drivers a couple of times throughout the genesis' life.

It wasn't just Sega.

Capcom also didn't do anything for SF2 on PC and Amiga. US Gold got the license but didn't get anything else. They had to create the game from scratch, probably with an arcade machine running in the office to look at. Which resulted in the fucking worst game of all time (SF2 on Amiga).

Oh my friend, it gets so much worse than that. I have the Gametek port of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo for the Amiga CD32. Even with my expanded CD32, the thing runs at like 10 fps. It's horrendous.

EDIT: What luck, someone has footage of it running on a real, stock CD32. It runs better under emulation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSLoeKdXg4o

The craziest part of this port is the controls. The CD32 controller is basically like the SNES controller. Except they arranged the buttons for SSF2T vertically. So like, imagining the buttons on an SNES pad, B is weak punch, Y is medium punch, L trigger is fierce punch. A is weak kick, X is medium kick, R is fierce kick.

It's so fucking awkward.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Seriously? Thats odd because SSF2 on A1200 while it wasn't nearly as good as the SNES/GEN it was actually playable compared to the original.

 

[SeventhSon]

I'm pretty sure the ColecoVision version of Donkey Kong was also "reprogrammed" by Coleco itself, and was just authorized under license from Nintendo.

 

[lazygecko]

Yup, US Gold also released a sequel to Street Fighter called Human Killing Machine on home computers. As I remember it wasn't quite as good as Street Fighter II

I remember reading an interview with former US Gold staff about their home computer ports of Street Fighter 2. Since support with providing source codes and assets and such were so shitty back then, they had to go into an arcade after it had closed for the night, then use a SF2 cabinet to photograph every character with their animations frame by frame, and then scan them back into the computer and do their best to edit them into something useable.

 

[Krejlooc]

Seriously? Thats odd because SSF2 on A1200 while it wasn't nearly as good as the SNES/GEN it was actually playable compared to the original.

Oh yeah, I'm aware. I have both games, SSF2 on the A500 is actually even better than ther A1200 port. It looks ugly, but plays well.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Oh yeah, I'm aware. I have both games, SSF2 on the A500 is actually even better than ther A1200 port. It looks ugly, but plays well.

Yeah I see what they did there. SSF2T on CD32 seems to have the arcade sprites, color and scale. Animations and framerate must've taken a huge ass hit because of this, lol. But dat lack of parralax scrolling is something that annoyed me to no end on those machines.

Still SF2 A500 is the worst game I have ever played, because I never played on CD32. That game was an insult. SF2 was THE game I wanted, as we were hooked on it in the Arcade. It was a bigger letdown than the PS3 port of Bayonetta or Sega Rally 2 on DC. We just had to get a SNES for it.

 

[Krejlooc]

At least the amiga had some decent original fighters like shadow warriors, body blows galactic, fightin spirit, and a pretty alright port of mk2.

The amiga was capable of better, these are just exceedingly shitty ports. The kicker? Ssf2t is the rarest and hardest to find cd32 title, making that turd worth a lot. Im embarrassed to say I spent a pretty penny on it.

 

[SkylineRKR]

At least the amiga had some decent original fighters like shadow warriors, body blows galactic, fightin spirit, and a pretty alright port of mk2.

The amiga was capable of better, these are just exceedingly shitty ports. The kicker? Ssf2t is the rarest and hardest to find cd32 title, making that turd worth a lot. Im embarrassed to say I spent a pretty penny on it.

MK2 was okay. One button controls suck but I didn't really mind it back then. Body Blows and Shadow Fighter I found to be unplayable but I liked its music a lot.

I sort of liked Elfmania on Amiga. But the machine wasn't really for the fighting games. The better games were Alien Breed, Turrican, Shadow of the Beast and my personal favourite Brutal Football, lol. I was also sort of proud of Disposable Hero because it was a game created in Holland, which was a rare feat at the time.

I also own a Neo Geo AES and early NG fighting gameplay wasn't _that_ much better either. Actually only Capcom seemed to nail it back then.

 

[Krejlooc]

MK2 was okay. One button controls suck but I didn't really mind it back then. Body Blows and Shadow Fighter I found to be unplayable but I liked its music a lot.

I sort of liked Elfmania on Amiga. But the machine wasn't really for the fighting games. The better games were Alien Breed, Turrican, Shadow of the Beast and my personal favourite Brutal Football, lol. I was also sort of proud of Disposable Hero because it was a game created in Holland, which was a rare feat at the time.

I assume you have an A1200? It has a bug that prevents 2-button controls from working on an A1200. With an A500, you can play with 2 buttons using a normal Sega pad, which isn't so bad.

Your list of good games is terrific, btw. I personally like Zool 2 a lot, it's such a huge improvement over the awful first one. Shame it remained amiga (and atari jaguar) exclusive unlike the original which was on everything. They massively ported the wrong game, lol.

EDIT: Oh god, thinking about 1-button fighters reminds me that I have Shaq Fu for the Amiga. Shaq Fu... with 1 button controls... it's the worst goddamn thing ever.

 

[SkylineRKR]

I assume you have an A1200? It has a bug that prevents 2-button controls from working on an A1200. With an A500, you can play with 2 buttons using a normal Sega pad, which isn't so bad.

Your list of good games is terrific, btw. I personally like Zool 2 a lot, it's such a huge improvement over the awful first one. Shame it remained amiga (and atari jaguar) exclusive unlike the original which was on everything. They massively ported the wrong game, lol.

We started with 500 and upgraded to 1200. We did use Sega pads next to sticks and it could be true about the bug. I don't remember tbh. Playing SoR on my friends MD actually felt awkward to me because of 3 buttons, lol. I also had huge difficulty with the damn Pizza button setup of the local SF2 cab at first. Worst cabs ever.

These babies:

2 on each side.

 

[AmyS]

MD/Genesis was new hardware for 3rd parties back in 1989-1990

Since SEGA obviously knew their own console hardware better than Capcom, it's a good thing Sega reprogrammed Strider, Ghouls 'N Ghosts and Forgotten Worlds for their console.


Forgotten Worlds (Lost Worlds in Japan) was one of my favorite games of all time--More so than even Strider.

[wish I had this ^ myself]