Cronus Invictus: An Alternate Console Wars (Something a bit different)

Thande

Thande

Donor
We've now passed the event horizon of any of this looking sufficiently like OTL games or hardware to be of any use illustrating it. Unless any gifted graphics people want to have a go - PM me.
 
Workable Goblin

Workable Goblin

I'm having a lot of trouble following what's going on because I am not familiar with consoles AT ALL (totally a PC man), so, um, a summary would be nice? :eek:

Beyond that, I reiterate my desire for an update talking about what the PC people have been up to, though I know we've had Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Civilization, and Sim City come out. Has Sim City 2000 come out yet? What about some of the other Sim games? Anything else particularly noteworthy?

On a side note, could we see Silicon Graphics surviving and becoming one of the Big Two (or Three) graphics cards manufacturers? Seems right up their alley, really.
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
truth is life said:
I'm having a lot of trouble following what's going on because I am not familiar with consoles AT ALL (totally a PC man), so, um, a summary would be nice? :eek:

Beyond that, I reiterate my desire for an update talking about what the PC people have been up to, though I know we've had Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Civilization, and Sim City come out. Has Sim City 2000 come out yet? What about some of the other Sim games? Anything else particularly noteworthy?

On a side note, could we see Silicon Graphics surviving and becoming one of the Big Two (or Three) graphics cards manufacturers? Seems right up their alley, really.
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Unfortunately my PC knowledge starts in about 1996, so I've been leaving it vague up till now ;) Basically assume approximately the same as OTL, save for the fact that the earlier CD consoles mean more, and better, ports of DOS and Windows games to console which makes PCs slightly less popular as gaming platforms.
 

Nevermore

The console wars continue to thicken...

Interesting on having Atari and Microsoft team-up. That was certainly most unexpected. I can definitely see Atari consoles as coming to be seen as 'PC port havens' in TTL. Super Mario Fantasy huh? Interesting...in a more Kingdom Hearts-esque fashion, Thande, is it possible that sequels in the future might include other Nintendo franchises?

One small quibble - the Ecco the Dolphin franchise, while being exclusive to the Sega platforms, was not a part of Sega's IPs. EtD was developed by Novotrade International and simply published by Sega. And I'm highly disappointed that ToeJam & Earl (or a close analog) hasn't been mentioned. For shame! :p

For those who're trying to keep up with consoles of this ATL, I've compiled a small list
Nintendo:
(Home)
-Nintendo Entertainment System (Nintendo Famicom)
-Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super Famicom)/Super CD (add-on)
-Nintendo PlayStation

(Handhelds)
-Nintendo GameBoy
-Nintendo Color GameBoy
-Nintendo VirtualBoy

Atari:
(Home)
-Atari 2600
-Atari 5200
-Atari 7800
-Atari Cougar
-Atari Leopard

(Handhelds)
-Atari Lynx

Sega:
(Home)
-Sega SG-1000
-Sega Master System
-Sega Mega Drive/Genesis
-Sega Mega CD/(Sega) CD/Sega Radical
-Sega Jupiter/Hyper Drive/Revelation

(Handhelds)
-Sega Game Gear
-Sega Game Gear II
-Sega Mega VR

NEC
(Home)
-NEC/PC Engine TurboGrafx-16
-NEC/PC Engine TurboDuo
-NEC/PC Engine Futura (formerly TurboGrafx-32)

(Handhelds)
-NEC/PC Engine TurboExpress

Failed/One Hit Wonder Consoles
-Sanyo WarpStryke 128
-Phillip eCD

Microsoft OS's
-Windows 4.0

SNK
(Home)
-SNK Neo Geo
-SNK Neo Geo CD (not sure if it existed in TTL or not)

(Handhelds?)
-SNK Neo Geo Pocket?
-SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color?
 
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crackersncheese

To be honest I don't think it would have been actually called "Nintendo PlayStation". At the very least butterflies would morph that into something like "Nintendo GameStation" but I think it's more likely Nintendo would try to continue the XNES naming convention. Otherwise it continues to be an excellent timeline.
 
The Professor

The Professor

crackersncheese said:
To be honest I don't think it would have been actually called "Nintendo PlayStation". At the very least butterflies would morph that into something like "Nintendo GameStation" but I think it's more likely Nintendo would try to continue the XNES naming convention. Otherwise it continues to be an excellent timeline.
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Hmm Nintendo GameStation does have that ring to it. Plus you can guarantee SEGA fans calling it the Gaystation as kids are wont to do ;).
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
Nevermore said:
The console wars continue to thicken...

Interesting on having Atari and Microsoft team-up. That was certainly most unexpected. I can definitely see Atari consoles as coming to be seen as 'PC port havens' in TTL. Super Mario Fantasy huh? Interesting...in a more Kingdom Hearts-esque fashion, Thande, is it possible that sequels in the future might include other Nintendo franchises?

One small quibble - the Ecco the Dolphin franchise, while being exclusive to the Sega platforms, was not a part of Sega's IPs. EtD was developed by Novotrade International and simply published by Sega. And I'm highly disappointed that ToeJam & Earl (or a close analog) hasn't been mentioned. For shame! :p

For those who're trying to keep up with consoles of this ATL, I've compiled a small list
Nintendo:
(Home)
-Nintendo Entertainment System (Nintendo Famicom)
-Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super Famicom)/Super CD (add-on)
-Nintendo PlayStation

(Handhelds)
-Nintendo GameBoy
-Nintendo Color GameBoy
-Nintendo VirtualBoy

Atari:
(Home)
-Atari 2600
-Atari 5200
-Atari 7800
-Atari Cougar
-Atari Leopard

(Handhelds)
-Atari Lynx

Sega:
(Home)
-Sega SG-1000
-Sega Master System
-Sega Mega Drive/Genesis
-Sega Mega CD/(Sega) CD/Sega Radical
-Sega Jupiter/Hyper Drive/Revelation

(Handhelds)
-Sega Game Gear
-Sega Game Gear II
-Sega Mega VR

NEC
(Home)
-NEC/PC Engine TurboGrafx-16
-NEC/PC Engine TurboDuo
-NEC/PC Engine Futura (formerly TurboGrafx-32)

(Handhelds)
-NEC/PC Engine TurboExpress

Failed/One Hit Wonder Consoles
-Sanyo WarpStryke 128
-Phillip eCD

Microsoft OS's
-Windows 4.0

SNK
(Home)
-SNK Neo Geo
-SNK Neo Geo CD (not sure if it existed in TTL or not)

(Handhelds?)
-SNK Neo Geo Pocket?
-SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color?
Click to expand...
Great work - assume SNK's stuff is pretty much as OTL. Only one correction, the Sega VR is a headset attachment for the Mega Drive (as was planned in OTL), not a handheld. You might also want to put the Radical on a new line from the Mega CD to emphasise the fact that it is a considerably enhanced model with 32-bit graphics - basically like an OTL Mega CD and 32X together in one case, but without the 32X cartridge port stuff.

crackersncheese said:
To be honest I don't think it would have been actually called "Nintendo PlayStation". At the very least butterflies would morph that into something like "Nintendo GameStation" but I think it's more likely Nintendo would try to continue the XNES naming convention. Otherwise it continues to be an excellent timeline.
Click to expand...

It was the OTL planned name as far back as 1988, I get the impression it was originally conceived as something more like the CDi and thus not part of Nintendo's own lineup. Note that the OTL prototypes only have Sony signage on them, not Nintendo, even though eg the controllers are obviously from the SNES. While the whole POD here does mean the PlayStation is more of a mainstream Nintendo console, I think they'd keep the name.
 

Tyr

128 bit, heh.
I'm somewhat doubtful anyone would try and pull that one. Do 128 bit processers even exist?...I do miss speaking in terms of bitage though

What were you thinking of with these 'large magnetic disks ' though?
Just big CDs only used for that console?
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
Tyr said:
What were you thinking of with these 'large magnetic disks ' though?
Just big CDs only used for that console?
Click to expand...

Similar to those used with the Nintendo 64DD in OTL. Basically like big floppies/zip disks, about 50 megabytes capacity.

As for 128-bit, if you put in enough 16-bit and 32-bit processors - even if most of them aren't actually used - games companies of the time thought you could justify any number you wanted to claim ;) Even the N64 only ran in 32-bit mode most of the time.
 

Nicole

Tyr said:
128 bit, heh.
I'm somewhat doubtful anyone would try and pull that one. Do 128 bit processers even exist?...I do miss speaking in terms of bitage though
Click to expand...
Hm, over here during the lead-up to the Dreamcast there was a lot of promoting it as 128-bit... I remember seeing "The world's first 128-bit console" stated outright on AOL's headlines.
 

Tyr

Imajin said:
Hm, over here during the lead-up to the Dreamcast there was a lot of promoting it as 128-bit... I remember seeing "The world's first 128-bit console" stated outright on AOL's headlines.
Click to expand...

Was that Sega's doing though?
I think it was just some aspects of the un-technically informed press who didn't have a clue what the bit buisness was about.
 

Nicole

Tyr said:
Was that Sega's doing though?
I think it was just some aspects of the un-technically informed press who didn't have a clue what the bit buisness was about.
Click to expand...
Maybe- it was AOL, after all.

It's really a shame no one refers to the current generation as "256-bit", that'd just be amusing.
 

Tyr

Imajin said:
Maybe- it was AOL, after all.

It's really a shame no one refers to the current generation as "256-bit", that'd just be amusing.
Click to expand...

Aye. If bitage really did double every generation it would certainly add credibility to that old 'Sadaam buys PS2s to power nuke guidance systems' story.
I wonder why they stopped doing it....perhaps Sega or Sony or someone told them to stop being silly lest it makes them look bad? :p
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
Tyr said:
Aye. If bitage really did double every generation it would certainly add credibility to that old 'Sadaam buys PS2s to power nuke guidance systems' story.
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I remember that story - my uncle told me it and he used to work in Intelligence, so I guess there's some truth to it. I suppose he'll have to buy something different in TTL ;)
 

crackersncheese

Thande said:
I remember that story - my uncle told me it and he used to work in Intelligence, so I guess there's some truth to it. I suppose he'll have to buy something different in TTL ;)
Click to expand...

Perhaps a conspiracy story started by a British chemist on an alternate history discussion board about Sega of Japan making a "pact with the devil" in the Middle East?:p
 
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