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Street Fighter 5 displaces Street Fighter II to become the best selling game in the series, and Capcoms 8th best-selling game overall.

What do you exactly mean by extensive then?. 50k, 100k, even 1 or 2 million doesn´t seem to make much of a difference if you consider the difference in install base, you are the one making the claim, it is up to you to back it up.

No, you made the claim the SFII bundle was uncommon based on bad numbers (and only for Europe) from CV. I have not claimed any numbers just that the bundle was common (which your own CV site changes based on the machine what counts as common), I am also not the only person who has mentioned seeing the SFII SNES bundles in this thread outside Europe.
 

lukilladog

Member
No, you made the claim the SFII bundle was uncommon based on bad numbers (and only for Europe) from CV. I have not claimed any numbers just that the bundle was common (which your own CV site changes based on the machine what counts as common), I am also not the only person who has mentioned seeing the SFII SNES bundles in this thread outside Europe.

So your claim that it was extensively bundled is based on you and some people seeing the bundle outside Europe?. Got it.
 
So your claim that it was extensively bundled is based on you and some people seeing the bundle outside Europe?. Got it.

For years in stores yes. I highly doubt those were the same units sitting on shelves either.

You're entire pushback is faulty, it's based on wanting to believe a bad source that doesn't actually have any numbers or backing for those numbers for their ranges, which can range from short to long, you came in saying it was an uncommon bundle based off a number you misread about ONLY the EU variation of the console.

Then you aren't considering the other EU local bundles not just the EU one, and the US, and CA, and maybe Japan as well, which all add up whatever their real numbers are.

Example from here
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That's why PlayStation gets so many timed exclusive/third party exclusives, it just works for third-party devs to get into those type of deals with them.
 
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Depends on if the computers games were on cartridge, disc, or tape. Cartridge on some computer versions of SFII would have brought in a lot of money even only selling 50,000. But floppy and tape forget about it.

A lot of revenue? Sure. But profit? Probably not so much; cartridges costed a lot and Nintendo specifically had some high costs for their cartridges with NES/SNES era. It was one of the reasons Square had growing issues with Nintendo before finally deciding to leave for Sony when the PS1 came around.
 
A lot of revenue? Sure. But profit? Probably not so much; cartridges costed a lot and Nintendo specifically had some high costs for their cartridges with NES/SNES era. It was one of the reasons Square had growing issues with Nintendo before finally deciding to leave for Sony when the PS1 came around.

Nintendo Cartridges had larger sizes and boards in them that made them higher cost than average. Computer Cartridges were cheaper to produce and were made differently. It's one of the major reasons why Atari went with carts for the Jaguar instead of CD, using a cartridge drive that wouldn't have been out of place for a late revision 16 or 32-bit computer because it would allow them to produce a cheap slot and cheap carts (which they still couldn't afford.)

I wouldn't be surprised if Sega's cartridges were more expensive than what computers had but they were closer to them than Nintendo was. That's before you add in all the software with all the different chips added inside the cartridges making them even MORE expensive to produce on the SNES. Nintendo had high priced cartridges their entire early console run from NES to N64 compared to cartridges elsewhere, whether on computers or other game consoles, stuff like SNK excluded of course. Developers didn't like it either.

On computers in the 80's, Atari 400 line normalized cartridges outside the UK, and games didn't have to sell that much to make a lot of profits. My numbers aren't exact but 15,000 Cartridges sold made more money than 30,000 sold on disk, and 50,000 sold on Tape. Games worldwide including Japan, outside some European countries shifted to Cartridges and Disk, Cartridges were replaced by CD later and it was CD and disk. In some European countries, it was tape and disk for a longer time and Cartridges were not as common but did exist. Elsewhere tape was made niche pretty quickly.
 
Nintendo Cartridges had larger sizes and boards in them that made them higher cost than average. Computer Cartridges were cheaper to produce and were made differently. It's one of the major reasons why Atari went with carts for the Jaguar instead of CD, using a cartridge drive that wouldn't have been out of place for a late revision 16 or 32-bit computer because it would allow them to produce a cheap slot and cheap carts (which they still couldn't afford.)

The Jaguar's going with carts is weird though, because they would have already seen various devices were bringing in CDs, and if Atari wanted the Jaguar to maintain for a typical length console gen of those days (~ 5 years), they would've at least had to of considered CDs at some point.

Which we know they did, because the Jaguar CD is a thing. But if cartridges were so pricey for Atari to do even with the benefits of a cheap slot, then maybe they should've eaten the costs and gone with CD at the start. They based their CD tech on the cheaper Audio CD standard anyway, but that may've made the reliability problem even worst.

Maybe floppies or cassette would've been a viable alternative in addition to carts for them?

I wouldn't be surprised if Sega's cartridges were more expensive than what computers had but they were closer to them than Nintendo was. That's before you add in all the software with all the different chips added inside the cartridges making them even MORE expensive to produce on the SNES. Nintendo had high priced cartridges their entire early console run from NES to N64 compared to cartridges elsewhere, whether on computers or other game consoles, stuff like SNK excluded of course. Developers didn't like it either.

Yeah, outside of stuff like Virtua Racing, Sega's cartridges were generally cheaper than Nintendo's but a lot of Nintendo games, particularly for SNES, had extra silicon built into the carts in some cases for very specific processing features. It's in line with the way Nintendo built the SFC/SNES to begin with. Whereas with Sega, the cartridges basically just contained the ROM data, something for checksum I'd guess, and maybe a battery for certain data backup like hi-scores or the few games that allowed saving.

But the other thing that those carts allowed Nintendo to do was have very high licensing costs, compared to Sega and SNK, who I think still had higher rates than what Sony eventually offered. And it really just came right back down to the media format; by N64 time most 3P devs had enough of dealing with cartridges, but that's the only real option of a format the N64 offered them.

On computers in the 80's, Atari 400 line normalized cartridges outside the UK, and games didn't have to sell that much to make a lot of profits. My numbers aren't exact but 15,000 Cartridges sold made more money than 30,000 sold on disk, and 50,000 sold on Tape. Games worldwide including Japan, outside some European countries shifted to Cartridges and Disk, Cartridges were replaced by CD later and it was CD and disk. In some European countries, it was tape and disk for a longer time and Cartridges were not as common but did exist. Elsewhere tape was made niche pretty quickly.

That makes sense because the cartridge versions would've sold for a higher price, so higher profit margins I'd assume. Same thing on PC once CDs started becoming more prevalent for physical medium in the early '90s.
 
The Jaguar's going with carts is weird though, because they would have already seen various devices were bringing in CDs, and if Atari wanted the Jaguar to maintain for a typical length console gen of those days (~ 5 years), they would've at least had to of considered CDs at some point.

They did, they planned for the console to take cartridges because what they were going to use would have made the console cheaper and the games to produce cheaper than a CD, although it would turn out they had less money than they let people in on. But they were also aware that all the competitors were using CD, CD players were becoming popular home and portable, and PC drives were selling gangbusters, so they intended to launch the Jaguar CD at the same time as the Jaguar console but issues prevented that from happening, and instead the Jag CD, cheaply made, was released late in 1995 when it was obvious Atari never had the resources to pull the jaguar off. There's marketing and press releases talking about Atari promoting the Jag CD and Jaguar as early as 1993.

But if cartridges were so pricey for Atari to do even with the benefits of a cheap slot, then maybe they should've eaten the costs and gone with CD at the start. They based their CD tech on the cheaper Audio CD standard anyway, but that may've made the reliability problem even worst.

Maybe floppies or cassette would've been a viable alternative in addition to carts for them?

Atari didn't have money to produce CDs either, yeah they would be able to produce more for the same price but it would only be 50,000 Cartridges to 100,000 CDs most likely. By the time they had their complete launch in 1994 every other department At Atari was laid off and closed, so if the company was relying on only one product to stay afloat, those aren't the numbers that were going to save it.

Floppies and Cassette? On a 3D home gaming consoles in 1993? Lol, the first problem with that idea is that in the US, the biggest market, Tape was a repellent, same in Japan for the most part, so that would disqualify Atari from the 2 largest gaming markets at the time. Even in Japan Nintendo used Disks for the Disk System and not tape.

Floppies may seem like a better option until you consider the biggest shortcoming it would have given Ataris financial position, that being an increase in piracy which wasn't an option. Another big problem with Disks is data access, loading times would be early CD gaming level or worse unless Atari build a faster system that also included more ram which was also off the table. Disks also aren't as reliable as carts, easy to make unplayable, and wouldn't have the same longevity. Load times and piracy alone would make the idea of Floppies make Sam have security throw you out into the street.

That's why home consoles didn't have much onboard memory, because they didn't need it with cartridges.

But the other thing that those carts allowed Nintendo to do was have very high licensing costs, compared to Sega and SNK, who I think still had higher rates than what Sony eventually offered. And it really just came right back down to the media format; by N64 time most 3P devs had enough of dealing with cartridges, but that's the only real option of a format the N64 offered them.

Nintendo wasn't thinking of the consumer or developers then, Japans computer industry had moved to CD's by the time of the original Ultra 64 announcement with a small remnant using Disks for business reasons, and there wasn't much of a reason for a Japanese developer to consider cartridge over either other than portable electronics, and CDs allowed for cheaper software. Nintendo made money on the N64 using their old strategy it cost them market share and created consequences for the Gamecube later.
 
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