Playstation Classic announced

[nakamura]

This menu theme always sums up the charm of PAL PSX gaming for me. It was **** like this that had me swapping the thing for a Saturn ASAP.

Love that music.

[Team Andromeda]

PAL ISOs? **** me. How can Sega, SNK and Sony not get this stuff right. Nintendo are dicks half the time, but they nailed their classic consoles.

SEGA haven't even brought theirs out yet and tbf to SNK, the screen is lovely and the emulation spot on.

[Sketcz]

I see people keep saying PAL games, but not citing a source. Where was this stated?

If so, that's disgraceful.

I'd like to remind everyone, that you can't just patch or mod or flick a switch to make a PAL game run in 60Hz, like you can with SNES or Mega Drive or even Sega Saturn games. PAL PlayStation games are hard coded to run in 50Hz, and hard coded to have black borders. You technically can patch PAL games, but you need to use three programs in succession:
p4upatch.exe
pal4u2K.exe
ZAPPER2K.EXE

I haven't messed about with these in ages, but it's something like one is for the speed, one is to check and find the screen positioning and make a file based on this check, and then the final prog uses the file from the second prog to manually stretch or reposition the screen, since otherwise - after patching it for speed - you end up with half the screen not visible on your TV.

Even then, PAL games which have been patched can have serious problems. I did this with Suikoden 2, since the PAL release fixed glitches and translation errors from the US version, and parts of the screen were forever lost as a result, ever after adjustment, meaning all the menus were right up against the edge. Rapid Reload meanwhile can't even be patched properly! The scanning prog can't find X/Y coordinates in the PAL release.

Make no mistake - using PAL versions is a terrible idea, and there is zero possibility of those PAL games being modified by Sony to run correctly. The best option would be for them to burn the harddrives they own containing the PAL archives, just destroy all of them, and then use the American NTSC versions without question.

Now the Sega Saturn, that's super easy to make all games run in 60Hz, regardless of where they come from. You can take pretty much any PAL game, do a simple mod on your Saturn motherboard, and BOOM! Game runs like it was a Native NTSC title.

[Digfox]

I see people keep saying PAL games, but not citing a source. Where was this stated?

I think it's coming from this quote from Kotaku:

Oddly, many of the games on the PlayStation Classic were the European versions. When I booted up Final Fantasy VII, for example, I got the classic “Licensed By Sony Computer Entertainment of America” splash screen. But when I ran Battle Arena Toshinden, Grand Theft Auto, or Tekken 3, the screen said “Licensed By Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.” There are some tiny differences that I could spot in the games, such as having to select a United Kingdom flag from a menu if you wanted Grand Theft Auto’s text to display in English. (I’m not sure if there are any major differences buried later in any of the games.)

https://kotaku.com/playstation-class...s-e-1830294616

I haven't seen if any media have actually asked Sony or even tested to see whether the games will be NTSC or PAL versions but it sounds like an odd mix. Would be nice for this to be clarified before release.

For me I'm right on the verge of cancelling this. The games list isn't stellar, and realistically like the mini Nintendo machines this probably won't get much play anyway.

[MoFo2]

The more I read about this thing, the more it feels «AtGames» and less «Nintendo».

[randombs]

Now the Sega Saturn, that's super easy to make all games run in 60Hz, regardless of where they come from. You can take pretty much any PAL game, do a simple mod on your Saturn motherboard, and BOOM! Game runs like it was a Native NTSC title.

Most PAL Saturn games I tried didn't work well in 60Hz. Optimised, full-screen 3D games like Sega Rally cut the screen off(like in your PS1 example). 2D games like SF Alpha 2 were squished to begin with so they looked correct but timing would go weird. For example, the intro sped up and would finish before the music!

[Jaz]

SEGA haven't even brought theirs out yet and tbf to SNK, the screen is lovely and the emulation spot on.

SEGA have whored out the MD for years to **** companies. The SNK unit is utter gash. I've played it.

[Asura]

I haven't seen if any media have actually asked Sony or even tested to see whether the games will be NTSC or PAL versions but it sounds like an odd mix. Would be nice for this to be clarified before release.

There might be a reason for those specific games, though I don't honestly know. There are some games where the Euro versions fixed problems, as they were usually the last to be made.

[Digfox]

There might be a reason for those specific games, though I don't honestly know. There are some games where the Euro versions fixed problems, as they were usually the last to be made.

Ah OK.

It feels like knowing if the machine is running at 60hz or not should be basic information that we know before release.

[importaku]

This things gonna bomb hard, even Amazon Japan hasn't sold out all their preorders & Japan had the better games list. Even the neogeo mini sold it's preorders.

[Dogg Thang]

There might be a reason for those specific games, though I don't honestly know. There are some games where the Euro versions fixed problems, as they were usually the last to be made.

Also they might be concerned about the language options when selling to Europe which would be missing from US versions. How did Nintendo handle this? Did any of their games come with other languages?

Whatever the reasons, the PAL issues are a hard pill to swallow in 2018.

[Asura]

Also they might be concerned about the language options when selling to Europe which would be missing from US versions. How did Nintendo handle this? Did any of their games come with other languages?

Whatever the reasons, the PAL issues are a hard pill to swallow in 2018.

Yeah; it's also that they might want language options they didn't support in the 90s that they would prefer to support now. EMEA releases tend to support EFIGS; a short-hand for English, Frensh, Italian, German and Spanish (also you sometimes get PEFIGS, AKA pee-figgs which includes Portuguese).

They might want to support Spanish and French in particular, because Spanish is more widely spoken today in the USA and French is good for the Canadian market.

[Neon Ignition]

Unless you really want the mini-shell it sounds like an utter waste of time

[Jamie]

Cancelled my order, the game list didn't inspire me and the news of PAL games pushed me over the edge. Seems a bit of a half arsed attempt by Sony.

[wakka]

Urk. 50hz versions, even in the US machine? They dun ****ed it.