"To Introduce our Guest Star, that's What I'm Here to Do..." The Hensonverse Fan Contribution Thread
- Thread starter Geekhis Khan
- Start date
It's only a matter of time before Nick and Neptune begin to resemble OTL's Kids WB in certain respects. Nick in the Studio Bumpers angle, Neptune in the Cheesy cartoon Crossover angles. At this point, it'd make sense for Warner to move Toonami from Nick to Neptune so that Nick itself can have N-Gage later. Then the Anime characters can be part of those promos too.
Oh, they still do.
Cartoons air first on Nick proper, with reruns appearing on Neptune, with the exception of "Neptune Originals", with new episodes premiering on Neptune, then later airing as reruns on Nick proper.
A little off, but it's alright (change the font on the Neptune text, but keep my "Neptune Blue" color (Hex Code: #00BBC4))WARNING: THIS LOGO WILL BE CRAPPY.
So.....
Thoughts?
That would be awesome, wouldn't it?
...That works...SO well!
That's a great idea.
How about this?
Primetime (essentially serving as a bridge between Neptune & N-Gage) consists of 3HS...and;
I mean, Nick (and with it, Neptune & N-Gage) are owned by WB ITTL, so Toon Heads (ironically) makes perfect sense.
You know what would be awesome?
If Neptune starts up with something similar to this;
If Neptune starts up with something similar to this;
Yeah, as I've said multiple times at this point this kind of talk belongs. Here. @ExowareMasses and @Otakuninja2006, please take not for next time, K?
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Why? It's already been established that N-Gage would be on Neptune. Remember, you said too much anime is excess, remember?
So we made N-Gage be more than anime, even resembling Locomotion in some aspects.
And I legitimately believe N-Gage would be more successful as a teen/adult block aimed towards the 12-24 gender-neutral demographic compared to Pleasure Island's focus on 18-49(I believe that could work in Disney's favor) and Adult Swim's focus on 18-34 males.
In fact, I have good ideas for what anime could air in N-Gage's first 5 years on the air(i.e. August 2000-September 2005):
- Outlaw Star
- Martian Successor Nadesico
- Saiyuki
- Betterman
- Pilot Candidate
- The Vision of Escaflowne
- Slam Dunk (reruns)
- Mazinger franchise (reruns)(I really think this would fit very nicely with Warner Brothers).
- Jubei-Chan
- Saber Marionette J
- Hunter X Hunter(1999)
- Wolf's Rain
- Witch Hunter Robin
- s-CRY-ED
- Overman King Gainer
- Kikaider
- Galaxy Angel
- Brain Powerd
- Vandread
- Azumanga Daioh
- Cromartie High School
- Super Milk Chan
- DNAngel
- Final Fantasy Unlimited
- Zone of the Enders
- Wild Arms
Ok. I would be down to having some "Neptune exclusives" that airs only on Neptune.
Will The WB still exist ITTL? If so, I think a small Neptune promotional block could work.
And I think by 1994 most cable systems would have enough room to carry The Disney Channel, Disney ToonTown Channel, Nickelodeon, Neptune, Fox Family Channel and Cartoon City.
What font is the Neptune text? I made this in Canva. I don't have MS Paint. I might find another alternative for Sketchbook.
And I made it different because this was supposed to be a completely new logo.
Yeah. Did you read my ideas about the bumpers inspired by Adult Swim's AcTN bumpers from 2005? I even put up the video in one of my posts yesterday.
Did you also see my suggestions for songs that could be used on Fracto?
Exactly, That's great. You my friend, are awesome!!
Exactly, except we could have Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Ren and Stimpy, The Animaniacs, Batman, Beavis and Butt-Head and the Rugrats do that instead!!!!
Well, Cartoon City runs the Hanna-Barbera stuff and anything they can get their hands on.
It works for me. I wanna see Adult Swim get their asses kicked and handed to them by N-Gage.
Sure, maybe a conversation, or a new thread?
Hensonverse Speculation and Commentary
@Geekhis Khan Any plans for what comes of Se7en, Face/Off, and Truman Show? I'm working on ideas for them.
www.alternatehistory.com
Who would buy them?OK. So, this little number was supposed to be on the main thread as part of a larger, non-Disney animation post, buuuuut, it kinda got too big for its own good so, @Geekhis Khan and I decided it should go here instead. Enjoy.
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Miracleman and the Total Eclipse!
(with additional contributions from @Geekhis Khan ) Excerpts from an ABC Animation Overview by a prominent animation critic on Video-Sharing netsite OurWaves: 2017:
(Images from totaleclipse.blog and mycomicshop.com
"With Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids raking in the ratings like never before, ABC seemed to be holding their heads well above water. However, Haim Saban wasn't quite through yet. The next step to cementing His, DiC/Hollywood and ABC's legacy within the Animation Industry would be one of the most groundbreaking and controversial cartoons of the mid-90s. Ever Since the modest success of the Alex Proyas movie in 1994, independent comic publisher Eclipse Comics[1] had seen a slow-burning rise of Interest in the Miracleman brand, with toys, shirts and other merch becoming rather profitable as the movie began to develop its following. While its success in the states had been slow to get going, overseas, in Britain, the movie was one of the highest-grossing flicks of that year nationally, with ticket sales and merch moving like crazy along with a successful re-release of the Alan Moore Comic run.
Head of ABC, Michael Eisner was happy for the UK praise but sought to make good on his investment back home as best he could. Hence why, shortly before Grizzly Tales went to air, he, Haim Saban, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Jan and Dean Mullaney, began talks to bring Eclipse into the mainstream via the world of animation. Invited to the table with them were British animation legends, Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall. Their famous Manchester Production Company still working independently of the larger Nelvana Animation Group that they were now a part of, allowed them to work with both Hollywood Animation and Saban with little fuss from the higher-ups at both Nelvana as well as Penguin Productions. Shortly after initial talks were over, production began on what was to become one of the biggest hour-long weekly, afternoon sub-blocks in Syndication as well as some of the most iconic toons in the history of ABC.
Miracleman: Olympus! Based heavily on and set after the events of the Proyas flick and based loosely on Issue 16 of the original Eclipse Comics title by Alan Moore, produced, animated and written by Hollywood Animation in collaboration with Saban Entertainment and Cosgrove Hall Productions and broadcast on Children's ITV in the UK, YTV in Canada and Syndication in the US, as well as ABC Saturdays in mid-1995 at the same time as season 2 Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids, Where on Earth, is Carmen Sandiego?.and The Crow animated series that lasted 4 seasons, based on the Sam Rami flick that DiC had worked on with South Korea's Rough Draft. Save that for later though. The Miracleman toon shows the continued adventures of Miracleman (played by Seán Barrett), the superhero who spent most of his career in a simulation, after the destruction of London in the movie, as he and his superpowered allies, Miraclewoman, (JoAnne Good) Firedrake, (Beau Billingslea) British Bulldog, (David Jason) Qys scientist Mors, (Jim Cummings) Warpsmiths Kana Blur (Derek Stephen Prince) and Phon Mooda (Linda Larkin) Winter Moran (Gemma Bissix) and their talking green lizard/dog sidekick Overdog (Neil Kaplan), save the world...from itself. Gradually taking over and improving human civilization/society as the ''New Gods of Earth'', by forcefully resolving all of humanity's many problems and ills over the course of three seasons.
The series, as evidenced by its 3-year/season lifespan, was a game-changer in the fact that, fittingly enough, it was a genre deconstruction aimed at an older child audience. Specifically, it was a genre deconstruction of Superhero team cartoons of that era and prior. X-Men, He-Man, Thundercats, Transformers and, naturally, Superfriends. Everything about the series demonstrates this, starting with the New Gods ''Hall of Justice/Cats Lair'' of Olympus. An enormous, golden, ornate Palace/Cathedral where regular mortals go to appeal or protest to their ''Living Deities'' through direct prayer. Our ''heroes'', while well-meaning, kind and trying to make the world better, are usually portrayed as self-righteous and autocratic in their approach. the fact that their ''adventures'' are actually a forceful, planetary takeover is never shied away from. The costumed "villains" (an element which Moore wholely despised, mainly because he's never actually watched the show, but OK.) are mostly depicted as civilians, businessmen, or politicians, simply trying to preserve the old way of life they've always known for better or worse. The desperate, the frightened, or just enraged at the gradual overruling of their freedoms of choice or autonomy under the mandates of their ''divine'' saviours. In many regards, they can be regarded as the true heroes of the series.
(Olympus as seen in both the comics and the show - nothingbutcomics.files.wordpress.com)
Even the individual members of Miracleman's team are deconstructions of Animated Superhero Archetypes. The titular hero's an uncertain, cold, despotic, disconnected, yet benign and gentle figure of few words, his female counterpart/wife, a dissection of the "Caregiver", suffers from a mild Peter Pan syndrome despite being his right-hand lady due to her own young life in the virtual reality hellscape, and her ''words of wisdom'' sound like the shit you'd see in a Hallmark Greeting Card, Mors, the ''Wise Wizard'' of the group only comes off as ''mystical'' in looks and is actually a logically minded scientist and technician, the Warpsmiths are portrayed as "siblings" in the sense of sharing the same race and profession, rather than anything playful or heartfelt, with Blur being as much a scholarly academic and researcher as he was a fighter and Mooda, the ''teenager'' of the team, being really wise beyond her years despite being so spiritually free-spirited, British Bulldog's patriotism and John Steed, ''british stiff-upper lip'' schtick's seen as ironic, irrelevant and ridiculous by many in the wake of superhuman globalisation, 10 year old ''kid sidekick'', Winter Moran's ''cute antics'' are depicted as somewhat unnerving to all but her parents while Overdog (whose comics name "Pluto" went unused, most likely to keep Disney off of ABC's ass), the ''animal sidekick'' is depicted as an ugly, semi-reptilian, bad-ass, brutal attack hound, yet treated like a heroic Scooby-Doo by his owners.
The only character that stays relatively constructed is Firedrake, the African-American Pyrokinetic, shown to be the most sensible, straightforward and well-meaning of the group. Not in spite of but because of his previous circumstances. Eventually, by the start of season 3, the male teen sidekick archetype would be deconstructed with the introduction of the revived Young Miracleman/Dickie Dauntless, (Christian Bale) who becomes the ultimate threat and eventual undoing of his mentor's Utopia, reviving traditional Superheroics using Mors' Qyrs tech to create a new team of protectors for a now uncertain world on the brink of total chaos. The show was also a deconstruction of kids' toons based on Adult properties, the kind that kept springing up in the 80s and 90s. Sex and nudity were, of course, toned down or removed, but the violence, gore, death and blood, which would usually rarely be depicted in superhero cartoons, were only toned down enough to keep the show on Saturday mornings and were depicted, as they should be, as situational. Couple that with a twisted, broken, Industrial rebuttal to all the epic, rocking theme tunes attached to hero team cartoons by Phil Bush and Shuki Levy, twisted Aesops and superb animation/writing during the winter years of Hollywood/DiC, and it's hard not to see why MM:OL has such a devoted fanbase to this day.
Amid all of this, However, HA/DiC was going through a tumultuous time, and many in production began to notice similarities in the behaviours and mannerisms of the Miracleman characters to the characteristics of ABC executives like Michael Eisner, Bob Iger, Jeff Katzenberg, and Daniel Burke. Some today still wonder if the Olympian takeover was a subtle reflection of the slow, political gamesmanship of the many senior executives. Sometime between the greenlighting of MM:OL and Eisner's infamous firing, heart attack and move down south to work for Ted Turner, Saban, Cosgrove and Hall had talked him, Kats, writer Don Chin and The Mullaneys into greenlighting a second Eclipse-based toon. This time, an affectionate Tribute to/Lampooning of the now world-famous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Saban, who'd been noticing the apparent decline of the original Turtles Cartoon throughout the decade and, mistakenly believed that the heroes in the half shell were on their way out, and Brian and Mark, who were most likely itching to take the piss out of American Toons again as they'd done with Avenger Penguins back in 93 to 95, had been in secret talks with The Mullaneys and Chin to adapt their old Turtles Parody, Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, into yet another cartoon series. After yet another meeting with the board, in which Daniel Burke enjoyed the pitch, the bargain was made. and the series put into the pipeline. The Hamsters' backstory in the cartoon is an almost perfect adaptation of that from the comics...at least for the first half.
In 1980, NASA launches a space probe containing 4 baby hamsters in order to ascertain the potential danger of a mass of "Space Jello" heading in the direction of the Earth. Coming into contact with this radioactive purple goop, transforms the Hamster Babies into anthro versions of themselves, just as their probe crash-lands near a Tibetan monastery. Raised by the monks of this temple, the four are named after 4 of the best Martial-Arts Movie actors in the world, Leader Bruce (Eddie Griffin), and his brothers Chuck, (Rob Rackstraw) Clint, (Matt Hill) and Jackie (Simon Nash) trained by Head-Monk, Master Lock (Stephen Mendel), in the ways of Martial Arts from the age of 7. Sent out by Lock into the world at the age of 15, specifically to deliver a package to his brother in San Francisco, the quartet instead find themselves becoming reluctant heroes in NYC, embroiled in the machinations of the ''Pot Luck'' terrorist organisation against their will. While not addicted to Sex, Drugs and Debauchery like their comic counterparts, The Hamsters are still less than ideal role models. Selfish, egotistical, hedonistic, mentally unstable and detached from reality, leading to them quickly losing their heroic rep within the city within the first 2 episodes, as they try to find their way to San Francisco to deliver that damn package. A task that'd take 2 seasons to accomplish from 1995 to 1996. Of course, the awesomely cheesy Rap theme by Jeremy Sweet and Russell Velázquez is a banger and I still have memories of dancing to it to this day.
(Bruce, Chuck, Clint and Jackie, the titular ARBBHs - Comic Vine. The theme sounds something like that, but better and longer)
As you've probably guessed, despite its mere two-year lifespan, ARBBH grew to become a cult classic and, in re-runs, along with MM:OL, were the beginnings of what would become the hour-long, weekly, Sunday ABC sub-block ''The Total Eclipse Hour.", but that wouldn't come to pass until later in the year when ABC was bought out by *&^%^&%[2]. With his future standing with ABC appearing to be in danger, it came as a relief to Haim Saban when *&^%^&% agreed to continue working with his company. However, while Cosgrove Hall would be permitted to finish the remaining seasons of MM:OL and ARBBH would not work with them again, at least in the animation/writing department, insisting to Saban, Iger and Kats that their combined resources would be enough to continue. This turned out to be a huge lie as they would work on future toons with the aid of Rough Draft Korea and their old pals at £@& who had helped to produce (%$£!?@ >:"$? and *&^:#~-/.[3] But all of this was only the beginnings of what became both Saban and Bob Iger's personal brainchildren. The Daily, Two-Hour kids programming block/overseas channel to replace ABC Saturdays, KBC, and the Total Eclipse Hour itself.
(By @ExowareMasses )
As KBC's Underground Rebellion, Outer Reaches, Hacker theme brought the viewers in upon its launch in late 95, Along with the usual stuff over the years. Saban dubbed anime, (Including Slayers and Virtua Fighter, not to mention Yu-Gi-Oh! and Monster Farm later down the line) cartoons produced/co-produced by Saban, select imports from Canada and Europe, (Including 3 Cosgrove Hall shows to start with, those being Avenger Penguins, Fantomcat and The Bromeliad Trilogy) Toons based on Modern video games, Toons based on hardcore wrestling, the MLB and NASCAR. Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills [4], Masked Rider, Techno Beat: Future Law, (Based on the Metal Hero tokusatsu seasons Special Rescue Police Winspector, Super Rescue Solbrain, Blue Swat and the two B-Fighter series' & which was so popular, that it Stopped the source material from going down a more kiddy route) *&^%^&% studio originals/classics, Grizzly Tales and other DiC/Hollywood/ABC Saturdays fare from years past (Crow Included), Both the Miracleman and Hamster cartoons would join them along with another Eclipse Comics toon fare, made in-house with £@& and the *&^%^&% animation dept.
The DNAgents, the story of a team of Genetically engineered teen/pre-teen Superheroes cloned into being by the Matrix Corporation (1995 - 1999), Mr Monster, the two-fisted, pistol-toting (semi-satirical) costumed monster slayer from the Golden Age of Comics, (1995 - 1997) Aztec Ace, 23rd Century Time Traveller protecting our timeline from all manner of threats (and the reason behind a great, big multiversal crossover 3 parter that brought a handful of the characters from all the TEH toons together) (1996 - 1998), Airboy, Golden Age Legacy Hero whose grandfather's death inspires him to pick up the mantle (1996 - 1999) and, finally, Coyote, a young, fun-loving, free-spirited, magically endowed, Native-American hero with a lust for living and unusual taking on the Underground conspiracies that threaten our world. (1998 - 1999) Of course, these shows ran as various reruns on regular KBC on the other 6 days of the week.
(Wikipedia, mycomicshop.com, Screen Rant, Vintage Comics and Toys, comicbookreligion.com. Also my ideal Airboy theme tune.)
With all of this greatness going on, it's no wonder that kids in the mid-90s have so many great memories of the stories they grew up with. For ABC, it definitely seemed as if a whole new lease on life had been opened up for them, thanks to Haim Saban. But the question is, would it las? How would ABC**&^%^&% stand the test of what was to come? Tune in for part 3 as we discuss..."
____________________________________________________________
[1] ITTL, Eclipse never suffers the catastrophic office flood of 1986, which destroyed most of its back-issue stock. Most likely, someone saw the problem in time.
[2] Not allowed to say who's doing the buying at this time. Quite frankly, I already mentioned too much by mentioning the buyout at all in the Grizzly tales post.
[3] Same as before.
[4] Yup, it's canon ITTL too. Remember that IOTL, DiC was the one who came up with this knockoff? Well, thanks to Saban's working relationship with ABC and the introduction of Masked Rider, that project got shelved at the proposal stage for the rest of 1994. Early in 95, the project was revived with Saban's involvement and came out close to 96, the 10th Aniversary of Bio-Force. At this point, Haim Saban was getting a wee bit tired of Bio-Force and, as far back as Dino Warriors, was granting Disney more production control, in order to focus on less ''Formulaic Cornball'' Tokusatsu dubs like Masked Rider and Techno Beat. (Ironic, as MR was still quite formulaic while TB, while a lot less formulaic, still had that ol' Saban brand of humour that we know/love) As a result, TTAFFBH became less of an unfunny BM ripoff with a shit budget and more of a tongue in cheek, deconstructive, Austin Powers-Esc parody of his first big break. (with an adequate budget.) Basically, it was his chance to vent about the Bio-Force franchise's tropes and cliches and let off some steam and it worked well too, as he'd return as a creative consultant and executive producer for the 2nd half of the 10th Anniversary season.
What would they work on?
Why is it such a secret?
Maybe to store their classic library and to compete against Cartoon City. And there will be Neptune exclusives and acquired reruns that won't run on Nickelodeon proper
In the Palm of your Hand
Neo Geo Pocket:
Note: 1993 hardware revision doubled battery play-time to 8 hours. TV Tuner cartridge ($65) was a popular option, at least for those who could afford it.
Vertical orientation is awkward, what with the thumbstick "above" the screen, but this was the only handheld console of the era theoretically capable of playing Pac Man at full resolution without zooming in the action.
Basically, take an OTL Atari Lynx and photochop in the stick and buttons from this controller.
Despite sales of between one fifth and one fourth those of the Sega Game Gear and Atari Bobcat, and less than one tenth that of the Nintendo Game Boy (one twelfth if sales of the Game Boy Color are lumped in), and selling worse than portable consoles of the time usually deemed flops by most electronics historians, such as the Bandai Design Master Senshi, the Tiger Game Star, and the Watara Supervision, the Neo Geo Pocket nonetheless was considered by SNK to be a massive success, and the decade after would spawn several software emulation and FPGA recreation projects, while Bandai's, Tiger's, and Watara's efforts languished in greater obscurity.
There were several reasons for this. The first was price. The Neo Geo Pocket was perhaps the only portable console of the era not to be priced and sold at a loss at anytime at its release cycle. Those estimated worldwide sales of 5.2 million for the console alone made SNK roughly $620 million in net profit over its lifespan.
Then there was the games library. While several Neo Geo arcade and home games failed to see release on the Pocket (most notably Power Disk and several arena tournament fighters such as Aggressors of Dark Kombat [Deemed too bloody for a handheld audience most survey's found to skew younger], The Last Blade duology [due to it being much more highbrow and period correct than the Samurai Shodown series, and with sexuality themes that wouldn't fly in Western and Middle Eastern markets], and the King of Fighters series [due to an increasing dependence on add-in chips]), there were several games from outside the Neo-Geo arcade and home software ecosystem that saw release for the Neo Geo Pocket, especially after the introduction of the 1993 hardware revision that doubled battery life and added an anti-ghosting, backlit screen.
These games included the likes of Capcom's Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Super Street Fighter II, Strider, and Ghouls n' Ghosts, Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Trilogy, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood/Dracula X, Metal Gear Trilogy, and (outside the US, where Sega held the Marvel comics license) X-Men: The Arcade Game, and Taito's Cadash, Rastan, Aqua Jack, and Bubble Bobble Trilogy, consisting of Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, and Parasol Stars.
The final and most especial reason most gaming historians deem the Neo Geo Pocket a success is that it was marketed (and sold modestly well) in several areas where its Western and Japanese competitors were shut out, due to various circumstances, including the Brazil(due to having a production facility in Sao Paulo), the Cone of South America, the Middle East (especially Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran), India, and several central Asian Former Soviet Republics (especially Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan).
From the RetroCore (YouTube Equivelant) Channel:
"One, two, three, four, hit it!"
When Viewpoint came out for SNK's Neo Geo arcade hardware and home system and the Neo Geo Pocket portable console in late 1992, it took the video game market by storm. All four of Electronic Gaming Monthly's feature reviewers gave even the portable version four 10s, with similar reactions coming from the likes of GamePro, Diehard Gamefan, Video Games and Computer Entertainment, and Next Generation. The praise for the isometric polygon-styled graphics reminiscent of Zaxxon and Hip-Hop and Contemporary R&B soundtrack was near universal, winning multiple magazines' Best Graphics, Best Arcade/Action Gameplay, and Best Soundtrack awards, and insuring that publisher Sammy would become a regular on SNK's decade-defining arcade hardware, with such further entries as Super Toki, Call to Post, and Ultra Rally.
The praise for the Neo Geo Pocket version was especially noteworthy. As the title never saw publication from any of its (alleged) then-contemporary competitors such as the Nintendo Game Boy and Game Boy Color, Sega Game Gear, and Atari Bobcat*, it was usually pitted against home console and computer ports. Yes, it was better than the MSX3 and Sub-VGA and SoundBlaster/Ad Lib MS-DOS versions, but then, those would-be platforms were by then already punching bags for advertising and magazines.
The curious thing was how well the Neo Geo Pocket version held up against it's set top and computer competitors. Could it match the jaw-dropping high resolution of the 10400/Lynx and Atari 3000/3500/4200X versions, the silky smoothness of the Toshiba TOPS RX, the Red Box CD soundtrack of the FM-Towns/Tandy 5000 and PC-Engine/Odyssey 3/VideoPac 8000 CD, or the massive@ PCM polyphony of the Sega CD and Super Nintendo Optical Disc Drive versions? Of course not. But, in each case, the Pocket version usually has something to lay against its competitor, being smoother than than the 10400/Lynx version (60 vs. 30/25 Hz, depending on the local broadcast market), with more things onscreen than the TOPS and even Sharp X65020/Commodore X16 versions$, and lacking the ridiculous loading times and slowdown for on-the-fly asset loading of most of the optical disc versions.
In fact, when the Home/Arcade and Neo Geo Pocket versions are compared in video clips, it becomes difficult to tell them apart, with the Pocket's combination of YM3438's DSP and two of MIKE's sound channels in PCM mode# being a close match to the NEO GEO AVS' Yamaha YM2608 and the Okidata MSM6295 Sammy and developer Aicom put on the cartridge PCB. It is only when gameplay of the two are put side by side that the differences become obvious, with the Pocket version cropping the top and bottom 18 horizontal rows of the playfield, respectively, and the graphical assets, despite SUZY's best decompression efforts, being no match for the Arcade/Home version's 18 megabytes of uncompressed Graphics ROM assets and the AVS' 98,304 color master palette.
So, does this put a lie to SNK's tagline for the Neo Geo Pocket of "Arcade Power in The Palms of Your Hands?" Well, not technically. Several arcade game makers made use of Neo Geo Pocket's motherboard chipset as the basis for coin-op products, including the UK's Century Electronics, Leland-Tradewest, South Korea's Sun-A Electronics, and even Capcom's Brazilian studio, due to "Market Reserve" legislation, as well as several mainland Chinese ventures marketing knockoff versions of Sega Scalar and Atari Voxel and polygonal arcade games. However, the only official SNK Neo Geo client to use the Pocket hardware in this way was Technos, for Hot-Blooded Kunio-kun Goes to Jail, which formed the basis for the SNES, Sega Genesis, and Atari 10400 game Renegade: The Final Chapter.
Notes
*: The Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Sega Game Gear are as in OTL, though the Game Boy Color was released in 1994. The Atari Bobcat is a portable released in TTL 1990, based on Atari 8-bit computer hardware (specifically the 1400XL version) with a cartridge slot sized to accept 2600 cartridges, and a 192x160 resolution.
@44 and 32 channels, respectively
$Blame that on the developer, which would become infamous for making cheap turd ports
#On most of the Neo Geo Pocket's ports, at least one of MIKE's channels was reserved for sound effects, while channel 3 was usually kept in geometry synthesis mode for percussion to save on data footprint.
| Name: | SNK Neo Geo Pocket |
| Introduced: | 1990 Osaka Electronics Show (Japan) 1990 Summer CES (North America) |
| Market Niche | Portable Video Game Console |
| Withdrawn from Market: | 2002 (Japan), 1998 (Rest of the World) |
| CPU | Toshiba TMP68000 (Licensed CMOS version of Motorola 68000) |
| Clock Speed: | 15.667 MHz |
| GPU | SUZY, consisting of 2 Blitters with theoretically unlimited BOBs, with hardware scaling, rotation, zoom, anti-aliasing, and tilting effects, 360 degree scrolling, Hardware 16x16=32 bit multiplier+division through inverse multiply, hardware compression/decompression. Can display up to 512 colors onscreen (128x2 for scrolling fields, plus 4 CLUTs of 64 colors each for BOBs) out of a master pallette of 4096 |
| Sound: | Yamaha YM3438 (CMOS variant of YM2612, Six Channels Four Operator FM Synthesis, built-in DAC)+MIKE (Four Channels 8-bit PCM or Geometry Synthesis, Channels 0-2 feature square, triangle, sine and white noise, while channel 3 features white noise and comb sawtooth, also includes DMA and LCD control functionality) |
| Unified System RAM: | 256K stacked pseudo-SRAM |
| Resolution: | 320x204 |
| Controls | sixteen direction thumbstick, Start, Select, Four Action Buttons (ABCD), each labeled with a different color, and vertical/horizontal switch. |
| MSRP | $320 U.S., or ¥35,200 (1990) |
Note: 1993 hardware revision doubled battery play-time to 8 hours. TV Tuner cartridge ($65) was a popular option, at least for those who could afford it.
Vertical orientation is awkward, what with the thumbstick "above" the screen, but this was the only handheld console of the era theoretically capable of playing Pac Man at full resolution without zooming in the action.
Basically, take an OTL Atari Lynx and photochop in the stick and buttons from this controller.
Despite sales of between one fifth and one fourth those of the Sega Game Gear and Atari Bobcat, and less than one tenth that of the Nintendo Game Boy (one twelfth if sales of the Game Boy Color are lumped in), and selling worse than portable consoles of the time usually deemed flops by most electronics historians, such as the Bandai Design Master Senshi, the Tiger Game Star, and the Watara Supervision, the Neo Geo Pocket nonetheless was considered by SNK to be a massive success, and the decade after would spawn several software emulation and FPGA recreation projects, while Bandai's, Tiger's, and Watara's efforts languished in greater obscurity.
There were several reasons for this. The first was price. The Neo Geo Pocket was perhaps the only portable console of the era not to be priced and sold at a loss at anytime at its release cycle. Those estimated worldwide sales of 5.2 million for the console alone made SNK roughly $620 million in net profit over its lifespan.
Then there was the games library. While several Neo Geo arcade and home games failed to see release on the Pocket (most notably Power Disk and several arena tournament fighters such as Aggressors of Dark Kombat [Deemed too bloody for a handheld audience most survey's found to skew younger], The Last Blade duology [due to it being much more highbrow and period correct than the Samurai Shodown series, and with sexuality themes that wouldn't fly in Western and Middle Eastern markets], and the King of Fighters series [due to an increasing dependence on add-in chips]), there were several games from outside the Neo-Geo arcade and home software ecosystem that saw release for the Neo Geo Pocket, especially after the introduction of the 1993 hardware revision that doubled battery life and added an anti-ghosting, backlit screen.
These games included the likes of Capcom's Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Super Street Fighter II, Strider, and Ghouls n' Ghosts, Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Trilogy, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood/Dracula X, Metal Gear Trilogy, and (outside the US, where Sega held the Marvel comics license) X-Men: The Arcade Game, and Taito's Cadash, Rastan, Aqua Jack, and Bubble Bobble Trilogy, consisting of Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, and Parasol Stars.
The final and most especial reason most gaming historians deem the Neo Geo Pocket a success is that it was marketed (and sold modestly well) in several areas where its Western and Japanese competitors were shut out, due to various circumstances, including the Brazil(due to having a production facility in Sao Paulo), the Cone of South America, the Middle East (especially Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran), India, and several central Asian Former Soviet Republics (especially Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan).
From the RetroCore (YouTube Equivelant) Channel:
"One, two, three, four, hit it!"
When Viewpoint came out for SNK's Neo Geo arcade hardware and home system and the Neo Geo Pocket portable console in late 1992, it took the video game market by storm. All four of Electronic Gaming Monthly's feature reviewers gave even the portable version four 10s, with similar reactions coming from the likes of GamePro, Diehard Gamefan, Video Games and Computer Entertainment, and Next Generation. The praise for the isometric polygon-styled graphics reminiscent of Zaxxon and Hip-Hop and Contemporary R&B soundtrack was near universal, winning multiple magazines' Best Graphics, Best Arcade/Action Gameplay, and Best Soundtrack awards, and insuring that publisher Sammy would become a regular on SNK's decade-defining arcade hardware, with such further entries as Super Toki, Call to Post, and Ultra Rally.
The praise for the Neo Geo Pocket version was especially noteworthy. As the title never saw publication from any of its (alleged) then-contemporary competitors such as the Nintendo Game Boy and Game Boy Color, Sega Game Gear, and Atari Bobcat*, it was usually pitted against home console and computer ports. Yes, it was better than the MSX3 and Sub-VGA and SoundBlaster/Ad Lib MS-DOS versions, but then, those would-be platforms were by then already punching bags for advertising and magazines.
The curious thing was how well the Neo Geo Pocket version held up against it's set top and computer competitors. Could it match the jaw-dropping high resolution of the 10400/Lynx and Atari 3000/3500/4200X versions, the silky smoothness of the Toshiba TOPS RX, the Red Box CD soundtrack of the FM-Towns/Tandy 5000 and PC-Engine/Odyssey 3/VideoPac 8000 CD, or the massive@ PCM polyphony of the Sega CD and Super Nintendo Optical Disc Drive versions? Of course not. But, in each case, the Pocket version usually has something to lay against its competitor, being smoother than than the 10400/Lynx version (60 vs. 30/25 Hz, depending on the local broadcast market), with more things onscreen than the TOPS and even Sharp X65020/Commodore X16 versions$, and lacking the ridiculous loading times and slowdown for on-the-fly asset loading of most of the optical disc versions.
In fact, when the Home/Arcade and Neo Geo Pocket versions are compared in video clips, it becomes difficult to tell them apart, with the Pocket's combination of YM3438's DSP and two of MIKE's sound channels in PCM mode# being a close match to the NEO GEO AVS' Yamaha YM2608 and the Okidata MSM6295 Sammy and developer Aicom put on the cartridge PCB. It is only when gameplay of the two are put side by side that the differences become obvious, with the Pocket version cropping the top and bottom 18 horizontal rows of the playfield, respectively, and the graphical assets, despite SUZY's best decompression efforts, being no match for the Arcade/Home version's 18 megabytes of uncompressed Graphics ROM assets and the AVS' 98,304 color master palette.
So, does this put a lie to SNK's tagline for the Neo Geo Pocket of "Arcade Power in The Palms of Your Hands?" Well, not technically. Several arcade game makers made use of Neo Geo Pocket's motherboard chipset as the basis for coin-op products, including the UK's Century Electronics, Leland-Tradewest, South Korea's Sun-A Electronics, and even Capcom's Brazilian studio, due to "Market Reserve" legislation, as well as several mainland Chinese ventures marketing knockoff versions of Sega Scalar and Atari Voxel and polygonal arcade games. However, the only official SNK Neo Geo client to use the Pocket hardware in this way was Technos, for Hot-Blooded Kunio-kun Goes to Jail, which formed the basis for the SNES, Sega Genesis, and Atari 10400 game Renegade: The Final Chapter.
Notes
*: The Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Sega Game Gear are as in OTL, though the Game Boy Color was released in 1994. The Atari Bobcat is a portable released in TTL 1990, based on Atari 8-bit computer hardware (specifically the 1400XL version) with a cartridge slot sized to accept 2600 cartridges, and a 192x160 resolution.
@44 and 32 channels, respectively
$Blame that on the developer, which would become infamous for making cheap turd ports
#On most of the Neo Geo Pocket's ports, at least one of MIKE's channels was reserved for sound effects, while channel 3 was usually kept in geometry synthesis mode for percussion to save on data footprint.
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Why does Nicktoons exist? Easier for those who just wanna see animation to watch that channel and skip the Live-Action stuff.
Look, I wish I could tell you, but that'd be a betrayal of trust and I have a tendency to internalise guilt over even the tiniest stuff. @Geekhis Khan will tell everyone real soon. I promise! Please be patient.
Yeah, these days, outside of stuff on YouTube and some CBBC(Children's BBC)/Australian youth shows(mind you I'm in America), I don't really watch live-action as much these days as I used to.
Ok. Can't wait. Should be exciting.Look, I wish I could tell you, but that'd be a betrayal of trust and I have a tendency to internalise guilt over even the tiniest stuff. @Geekhis Khan will tell everyone real soon. I promise! Please be patient.
BTW, do you think you could have some ideas for a TL I'm trying to work on myself?
I see this, and raise you an actual premise and title for this Warner Bros. variant on Kingdom Hearts.
Top Video Games never made
Thought I'd add more details to The Legend of Zelda: Duel of the Empires. Much of the game portrays the races of Hyrule as hailing from regions that reference places in the British Empire. These include: - Hylians: England - Sheikah: Scotland - Kolkiri: Wales - Koroks: South Africa - Guita (a...
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