I’ve been thinking about developing my own game for these arcade boards. I know it’s possible to make homebrew with Dreamcast, so I’m assuming it should be possible to develop homemade games for Sega’s ground-breaking arcade boards.
If possible, what tools do I need, and do I have to buy a Yamaha synthesizer to make the music.
no
If you have to ask…no.
Yes if you have a Ph.D in computer science and have connections to programmers in Japan who still have documentation and applications for the software development environment for each of those platforms. Too little is known. They even might have used proprietary computers like Silicon Graphics running Irix OS back then.
Or stuff from Lockheed Martin (then Martin Marietta) since they helped Sega develop it.
QUOTE OF THE DAY!!
The man speaks truth.
I know the question was asked innocently but most people have no idea of what goes into programming custom-made hardware.
Later-era Sega gear like the Saturn and arcade systems were notoriously difficult to program for. There are articles in some of the contemporary magazines where Sega producers (Yu Suzuki) admitted they were having to code in machine assembly language – all 0’s and 1’s! – to get the (Saturn in particular) hardware to perform well.
Furthermore, IMHO Sega made a critical error asking Lockheed Martin to develop the Model 1, 2, and 3 boards. That company is a DEFENSE CONTRACTOR for the US government – they’re not a consumer electronics company – and it’s not a company known for producing economical, easy-to-maintain equipment. The reason why a lot of Sega arcade games were scarce in the US market was the cost of the arcade hardware itself… These machines were $10,000-$15,000 a-piece and most arcade owners weren’t willing to pay that much for a game. They wanted quick turnover/profit. In one of its smartest business moves, Namco came up with its own series of lower-cost arcade boards based on PS1 technology. (The fact that they were PS1-cousins to begin with made ports of these Namco games to the PS1 far less costly, too.) Those machines, brand-new, were probably $4,000-$5,000. Which ones do you think the arcades stocked? Let me tell you, it was a lot easier to spot the Tekken, Soul Edge, and Capcom fighters based on PS1-tech than it was Model 2 and (especially) Model 3 games!
The Dreamcast was designed the way it was in response to the market issues created by the earlier Model 1/2/3 hardware and Sega Saturn (with its Titan hardware analogue). More economical, easy to scale up with more processors and more memory for expansion, and generally much easier to develop for. It was really too late for these changes to do much for the home console market – Sega blew its reputation with most gamers with the awful Sega Genesis add-ons and the poor marketing of both the Saturn and Dreamcast – but the Naomi (Dreamcast-derived) arcade hardware was used for close to a decade after the plug was officially pulled on the the Dreamcast.
P.S. –
If a lot of you haven’t noticed, I am passionate about Sega but came late to the game with that company and its products. I bought my first Sega system in 1994 – a Sega Genesis – but wasn’t really impressed with the company’s product until the Saturn era.
Like a lot of hardcore, I ended up importing half of my Saturn games – all of which I own to this day.
I am NOT, however, such a fanboy, that I don’t see how the company drove itself into the ground with a series of marketing blunders and poorly thought-out product add-ons.
Having Bernie Stollar take over as CEO/President of Sega during the Saturn era pretty much sealed the company’s fate as far as the American market was concerned. A better foot-in-mouth walking disaster as far as game company CEO’s are concerned you will NOT find. At least some of the overly arrogant CEO’s at Nintendo were proud of the product their company was selling…! Bernie, it seems, couldn’t wait to tell you HOW BAD he thought Sega product was or how they were going to abandon said-hardware and launch something new 18 months in the future!
Assembly language isn’t all 0’s and 1’s. A lot of of older stuff was programmed in assembly, I believe you’re thinking of binary.
Don’t forget that the Saturn wasn’t initially designed to do 3D graphics. The 3D was added apparently in response to the PlayStation (or so the rumours say). Even then, the 3D implementation used was based on quadrilaterals and not triangles (which are the standard today) so porting from other consoles was made more difficult
agentz and d3v – you’re both correct, of course.
d3v, thanks for reminding me about that tidbit of Sega’s WEIRD modeling practices with poly’s.
The Sega in-house developers really were in many ways working against the curve in the Saturn days. Some third-party companies DID come to grips with the system and put out excellent poly games on it – Capcom’s Resident Evil ports, Tecmo’s better-than-the-PS1 Dead or Alive port, and the Lobotomy FPS games (PowerSlave, Quake 1, and Duke Nukem 3D).
One thing I did notice on more than a few cross-platform ports was that the Saturn versions generally had tighter controls. That was very true in the Tomb Raider 1 port… odd thing being that Tomb Raider 1 was originally supposed to be a Saturn exclusive!
It’s really in 2D and fighting games and platformers where the Saturn shined, though… Considering the fact that there are a number of license-lapsed fighting games Capcom WON’T re-release any time soon and a few decent original console fighters, I’m glad I kept my Sega gear…
Off course, that was basically what the Saturn was designed for. Of the big three of that generation, Sega was the only true “arcade company” and hence were designing a system based on what was hot at the arcades at the time - 2D fighters.
We all know how that turned out…!
Mediocre 2-D was one of the reasons I HATED the PS1… Besides the fact that the original design models seemed to be made to FAIL after 18 months, 2 years tops. I was NOT happy to lose a launch day, first-gen American model because of heat issues. I swore off buying a PS2 until the slimlines appeared on market in late 2004. To this day, I STILL don’t buy Sony, let alone MS’s word on their hardware… (Which is why I have the noisy external fan in my fatboy 60GB PS3. I’m convinced the cooling fan is the reason it still works today!)