Super Famicom out in Japan
John Leo
friend in Japan wrote to me and said all the units that went on sale
today were already on reserve, so there was no way to buy them.
That's 300,000 units. Furthermore the order backlog is currently
1,500,000 units! If you are thinking of just popping over to Japan
and getting one you might want to think again. I hope things are less
hectic by the time I go back this summer.
Released with the main unit are Super Mario Bros. 4 and F-Zero. The
former in particular is rather incredible, and the more I find out
about it the more amazed I am. I'll post some information about it
after vacation.
It's a quiet little life with no problems between | John Leo
the stove that smokes and the ever-open window that | l...@theory.lcs.mit.edu
looks out on a landscape becomming daily less |
coherent...But what am I saying? And to whom?...
All questions not worth asking from now on. (Alain Robbe-Grillet)
jcw...@eos.ncsu.edu
1) The 'Super Famicom' will be introduced in the USA as 'NES-SFX'
(for special effects).
2) The 'NES-SFX' will have far better graphics than either the Sega
Genesis or the NEC Turbo-Grafx, as well as the ability to rotate, etc.
***3) The 'NES-SFX' will attach to the existing NES through an expansion
slot on the bottom of the NES. This is a smart move for
Nintendo, considering that nearly everyone already has a Nintendo.
4) The 'NES-SFX' will probably cost somewhere between $150 and $200,
and will
probably be introduced in the USA sometime next year.
5) Super Mario Bros. IV (Super Mario World) is one of the first games
for the 'Super Famicom' using the 16-bit graphics.
John Leo
before the 300,000 units that went on sale November 21 were
immediately snatched up, and there are apparently back orders for over
1.5 million units. Now Nintendo can only produce 300K a month so that
means the unit is back ordered until April.... I'd better order one
now just so I can pick it up this summer!
But actually the situation is more complicated than that. It seems
that not all the stores accept reservations, and given that Nintendo
allots a certain number to each store there were doubtless lines in
front of these ones (and perhaps will be every month when more come
out!). There's also some ticket system that some use that I don't
understand yet. So these means that the reserved ones would go well
into the summer. This is worse than "Cats"! I wonder if Nintendo
realized the Super Famicom would be this popular.
One other piece of news is that the final (?) word seems to be that
the Super Famicom is completely incompatible with the Famicom, and
that not even an adapter will work. Remember that even though the
Japanese magazines have given fairly detailed specifications for the
Super Famicom, the exact CPU used hasn't been announced, at least as
far as I've read (of course it must be known by now).
More information about the above, as well as other info essential to
anyone thinking of buying a Super Famicom, can be found in an
excellent article in the 11/2 issue of Family Computer Magazine. I'll
be posting a translation of it shortly.
Sun Shin Park
I thought that EGM said that the SFX would have two screen modes - one
would have graphics with resolution similar to Gensis/Turbo, while the
other one would have much higher resolution. The catch is that the
high resolution mode may not work on standard televisions, as regular
tv's are just not up to this level of resolution.
However, an RGB output will probably be provided to allow connection
to a VGA computer monitor. Hmmm, wonder what we'll be playing in 10
years when high defintion tv becomes popular?
This is all hearsay at this point, of course, since there won't be an
SFX for another year. Perhaps someone with a super-fami, or a copy of
the relevant Japanese magazine, would care to comment on the Japanese
super-fami (as distinct from the upcoming SFX).
--Neil W.