Something's wrong when the SNES thread is the second least popular one in here

[Kirk_Johnston]

Seriously, the SNES is one of the highest selling consoles of all the ones with threads in here, and it's easily the most popular of all these consoles in modern times--just look at the 5.28 million sales of the SNES Classic Mini vs its nearest-selling competitor, which is the NES Classic Mini at 3.8 million units sold. The Genesis Mini didn't even manage 1 million units in sales (at least not according to Wikipedia's best selling consoles of all time page and the Mini listings there), and any others did even less than that (I would presume)--yet, no one seems to be talking about SNES much at all in places like this. It's even relatively quite under-represented in the SNESdev forums too. That suggests to me that something is quite dormant/dead within the SNES indie/dev community, and I think it could and should be thriving much better than it is, all things being equal and relative. Maybe it would take a proper SDK to finally give the SNES the boost in modern indie/dev popularity it deserves, and I really wish that would just happen already. I honestly hope to God someone is seriously working on this, because I'd really love to see a bunch of brand new SNES games made for the console in modern times in the same way the Genesis is seeing a whole lot of indie/dev scene love right now. SNES deserves the same amount of love too.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Kirk_Johnston

[roots.genoa]

Indeed, the homebrew scene on the SNES is disappointing compared to its popularity, but it's the lack of SDK and tools; you're absolutely right.

 

Also it seems that the more exotic and/or unpopular (at the time) a system is, the more passionate the community will be. Homebrewers tend to 'right the wrongs' by porting classics on systems that never got them: ColecoVision, Atari 7800, Jaguar, etc. The SNES doesn't need it and it's actually difficult to create games that rival existing ones. You could say the same for the Genesis obviously but it has the great SGDK.

 

Finally, we're on AtariAge and people here are most of the time fans of Atari systems or pre-NES systems like ColecoVision, Intellivision, or TI-99/4A. I wouldn't say there are a lot of Nintendo 'haters' here, but let's say that Nintendo is not the most popular brand on AtariAge in my experience. 😉 So I guess SNES fans go elsewhere, even though there's not a lot of SNES homebrew discussion anywhere.

Edited August 16, 2022 by roots.genoa

[Kirk_Johnston]

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

Indeed, the homebrew scene on the SNES is disappointing compared to its popularity, but it's the lack of SDK and tools; you're absolutely right.

 

Also it seems that the more exotic and/or unpopular (at the time) a system is, the more passionate the community will be. Homebrewers tend to 'right the wrongs' by porting classics on systems that never got them: ColecoVision, Atari 7800, Jaguar, etc. The SNES doesn't need it and it's actually difficult to create games that rival existing ones. You could say the same for the Genesis obviously but it has the great SGDK.

 

Finally, we're on AtariAge and people here are most of the time fans of Atari systems or pre-NES systems like ColecoVision, Intellivision, or TI-99/4A. I wouldn't say there are a lot of Nintendo 'haters' here, but let's say that Nintendo is not the most popular brand on AtariAge in my experience. 😉 So I guess SNES fans go elsewhere, even though there's not a lot of SNES homebrew discussion anywhere.

Yeah, I think all of that sounds about right.

[Atariboy]

Like roots.genoa said, you have to remember that you're at AtariAge. I always try to remind people of a couple of things when they request a new sub-forum around here for their favorite system.

 

One is that ideally a new sub-forum reflects demand rather than representing a popularity contest. It should (in my opinion, of course) be created when the discussion activity reaches a threshold where it warrants splitting it off to its own location. Even if it's one of the best selling platforms of all-time, it could easily still be a niche discussion topic at a community like this.

 

Secondly, one's request of a sub-forum for their favorite system can actually be counterproductive. If there's not already a lot of discussion activity on a particular subject in the general area, cordoning it off in its own quiet little corner of the forum all but guarantees that situation isn't ever going to improve. If anything, there's going to be even less discussion activity and you're torpedoing your favorite area of discussion if your request succeeds for a dedicated area.

 

While it's up there with the Atari 2600 as my favorite system, perhaps a dedicated Super Nintendo area was a step too far for AtariAge. Personally I think I'd of rather of seen a 16-bit forum dedicated to that entire generation rather than quieter standalone sub-forums. 

Edited August 17, 2022 by Atariboy

[newtmonkey]

There's very little worth discussing (or even reading imo) on the non-Atari subforums lately, and that goes double for the SNES subforum.  People don't seem to be actually playing games, or at least are not willing to discuss what they are playing.  Furthermore, the non-Atari forums are filled to the brim with people shilling videos or simply posting random trivia or lists of games without any commentary.  It's not the kind of content that really generates thoughtful discussion or interaction.

 

The major exception imo is the high score challenge threads.  Those are a blast to read even if you aren't participating.

 

Maybe Atariboy is right, and there's simply not enough worth discussing on individual consoles.

[Kirk_Johnston]

I guess what the Internet needs is a proper dedicated SNES forum, for both new indie SNES developers and just fans of the console. I mean, even the SNESdev forum on NESdev is just a sub forum that relegates SNES to an afterthought as if it's some secondary console that no one really cares about, which couldn't be further from the truth. They don't even like you talking-up the SNES in there, which I just find completely bizarre in a dedicated SNES [development] forum. But, like I said, it would probably take a proper SNES SDK for it to be something the kinds of people that come to these more dedicated/hardcore console forums would truly bother with, rather than just a casual blog or general gaming site, which probably already cover SNES more than all the other consoles combined. Well, I'll guess I'll just keep my fingers crossed for that eventual SNES SDK and some dedicated SNES forum to pop up around that and hopefully reinvigorate the modern SNES dev scene (and I'll post occasionally in here and SNESdev until then). . . .

Edited August 17, 2022 by Kirk_Johnston

[youxia]

Yeah, what the retro world definitely needs is more SNES coverage. This console is seriously underrepresented and nobody wants to talk about it anywhere.

 

*eyeroll.gif*

[jhd]

2 hours ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

Well, I'll guess I'll just keep my fingers crossed for that eventual SNES SDK and some dedicated SNES forum to pop up around that and hopefully reinvigorate the modern SNES dev scene (and I'll post occasionally in here and SNESdev until then). . . .

 

Establishing your own forum is always an option.

 

Many years ago, I wanted to create a discussion space for a super-niche (non-gaming) topic, so I created an online forum for that specific topic. The volume of traffic was never very high, but it served its purpose adequately for well more than a decade. 

 

Alas, the free hosting site eventually ceased operations and I chose not to migrate to another site as my interests had evolved in another direction.

[Lord Mushroom]

I find it even more strange that there is not more traffic in the Arcade and Pinball forum, considering how important arcade-games were to Atari. I suspect the location of the forum is part of the problem. It took me about two years before I noticed it.

[Cobra Kai]

There have been Nintendo dedicated rivals to Atari Age in the past, such as Nintendo Age, but they floundered after being bought out IIRC. The internet has spoken, and Atari is the classic platform of choice for discussions.

 

Keep in mind too that all these subforums didn't always exist. All the non Atari stuff was all mixed together and had to be separated 'by hand' . Just saying that thread counts don't necessarily reflect all the discussions of any one platform here.

[Cobra Kai]

On 8/17/2022 at 11:41 AM, Lord Mushroom said:

I find it even more strange that there is not more traffic in the Arcade and Pinball forum, considering how important arcade-games were to Atari. I suspect the location of the forum is part of the problem. It took me about two years before I noticed it.

I agree with you on this, and I think the forums could use a bit of organizing in their order. However, I'm not surprised at the lack of Arcade talk because like most gamers, Arcade enthusiasts are separated from console gamers, they don't seem to mix well (don't know how else to put it). I know Arcade gamers have their own forums or use to anyway. 

[Tanooki]

What roots said is right.  This site isn't pro Nintendo, not anti either, but doesn't have the warm and fuzzies and it's a bit intentional.  If you had been here enough years you'd know that the SNES/NES stuff got added relatively later than the Sega and some other places outside of the NES high score club portion.  Part of that would be in the past there was a formerly huge community at NintendoAge, but the owner cashed out to a greedy troll who pulled a 180 and nuked the site basically screwing hundreds (thousands?) of active/semi-active users out of a home.  So when that was there, there was no reason to compete, better to be different and Atari centric is different.  These days the saner nicer elements of NA went to videogamesage.com and set up shop once more, but it's not all vitriol and militancy about supporting grading crooks, condition freaking, bragging like mad, and being in a clique -- it's like the anti-NA and really covers multiple systems there now, not just the one maker.  Maybe that place would be more suited to your tastes.

 

That said you're right, there is no kit out there, and given how deep people dug into the SNES over decades now it was a hard nut to crack beyond the basic level of what the core CPU used, it was well more understood.  Between the more exotic Sony SPC700 chip and a dozen different special chips used in numerous games it created a lot of problems, also problems from games that used unique undocumented quirks or bugs in the hardware for their games too.  Lots of stuff sounded bad, looked off, wouldn't run, or just melted down for years until it was slowly figured out.  That's why there just isn't the support stupidly and annoyingly for more SNES homebrew. Given it became the basis of a template of what people largely shoot for in quality for the whole 16-32bit 2D style 'indie' style game scene it's nuts it is where it's at, it should be just oozing with games like the NES does, but it's far more easier to wrap around that one.

 

I was more active for a time posting in these sections, but it gets old when you feel your name pops up largely more than the others to the point you just don't bother as much, same as how I used to always post in the thrift/finds thread and largely quit.

[Domeshtan]

Trying to do homebrew games on the Super Nintendo has been quite an annoying experience so far. I bought ChibiAkumas Volume 2 for learning some more assembly language programing. There is a section on 65816 assembly with some basic Super Nintendo programs to try out. (The usual Hello World, putting a smiley on the screen, moving it around with the keypad...) Nothing that will be an in depth catch all to Super Nintendo programming but I can only get the examples to work on emulators... Usually reporting an error but runs anyway. I tried to write them to Eproms with my GQ 4x4 (and ADP-054 16bit adaptor in some cases for larger Eproms). Nope... They all fail on real hardware. I'm using Muramasa boards so no rewiring needed. I wrote other Super Nintendo homebrews to Eproms to test my LOROM and HiROM boards and the games work fine. (Classic Kong Complete, Jet Pilot Rising and 2 others) so my writing to Eproms isn't the issue. I tried looking all over for information on Super Nintendo homebrew and everything seems to be a mess. A piece of info here, a piece there, dead links to examples, examples that run fine on emulators but fail on real hardware again. (Just a black screen). My book uses WLA_DX, then it's like "No, use CA65" , "No, use 64 tass"... I've tried for about a month looking all over studying stuff and trying to "re-word" things.... After about 40 tries... Nope, still won't run on real hardware. I tweaked some stuff around experimenting and they work on emulators but not the real system. Frustrating buying all the components to make your own cartridges for your homebrew work and discover even using a book I can't get one example to work on my system... Only emulators. Really too bad as I think Super Nintendo homebrew work could take off if there were a detailed book covering everything with SIMPLE examples. Like an all in one skeleton file to start with. Zero out and initialize stuff, Set LoROM/HiROM mapping, how many banks to use, Set the vectors properly, etc... I have Making Games for the Atari 2600... Great book. Learned a lot. Making Games for the NES... I skipped to the assembly language stuff. A couple books for Retro Game Dev for the Commodore 64. The ChibiAkumas books cover a lot of different systems but only the bare bones basics on them to experiment with. After all this time and Super Nintendo development seems to be such a mess to do anything? I'm sure the information is out there but everything seems scattered or I can't get it working on the real machine. I made my own Super CICs out of 12F629s to deal with the lockout chip stuff by the way, so that's not the issue.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Domeshtan

[Kirk_Johnston]

10 hours ago, Domeshtan said:

Trying to do homebrew games on the Super Nintendo has been quite an annoying experience so far. I bought ChibiAkumas Volume 2 for learning some more assembly language programing. There is a section on 65816 assembly with some basic Super Nintendo programs to try out. (The usual Hello World, putting a smiley on the screen, moving it around with the keypad...) Nothing that will be an in depth catch all to Super Nintendo programming but I can only get the examples to work on emulators... Usually reporting an error but runs anyway. I tried to write them to Eproms with my GQ 4x4 (and ADP-054 16bit adaptor in some cases for larger Eproms). Nope... They all fail on real hardware. I'm using Muramasa boards so no rewiring needed. I wrote other Super Nintendo homebrews to Eproms to test my LOROM and HiROM boards and the games work fine. (Classic Kong Complete, Jet Pilot Rising and 2 others) so my writing to Eproms isn't the issue. I tried looking all over for information on Super Nintendo homebrew and everything seems to be a mess. A piece of info here, a piece there, dead links to examples, examples that run fine on emulators but fail on real hardware again. (Just a black screen). My book uses WLA_DX, then it's like "No, use CA65" , "No, use 64 tass"... I've tried for about a month looking all over studying stuff and trying to "re-word" things.... After about 40 tries... Nope, still won't run on real hardware. I tweaked some stuff around experimenting and they work on emulators but not the real system. Frustrating buying all the components to make your own cartridges for your homebrew work and discover even using a book I can't get one example to work on my system... Only emulators. Really too bad as I think Super Nintendo homebrew work could take off if there were a detailed book covering everything with SIMPLE examples. Like an all in one skeleton file to start with. Zero out and initialize stuff, Set LoROM/HiROM mapping, how many banks to use, Set the vectors properly, etc... I have Making Games for the Atari 2600... Great book. Learned a lot. Making Games for the NES... I skipped to the assembly language stuff. A couple books for Retro Game Dev for the Commodore 64. The ChibiAkumas books cover a lot of different systems but only the bare bones basics on them to experiment with. After all this time and Super Nintendo development seems to be such a mess to do anything? I'm sure the information is out there but everything seems scattered or I can't get it working on the real machine. I made my own Super CICs out of 12F629s to deal with the lockout chip stuff by the way, so that's not the issue.

Yeah, that seems to be the main problem: The SNES homebrew scene is just a mess, and I think it's going to take a proper SNES SDK before anything meaningful happens. I hope it does.

[Austin]

On 8/17/2022 at 12:34 AM, newtmonkey said:

There's very little worth discussing (or even reading imo) on the non-Atari subforums lately, and that goes double for the SNES subforum.  People don't seem to be actually playing games, or at least are not willing to discuss what they are playing.  Furthermore, the non-Atari forums are filled to the brim with people shilling videos or simply posting random trivia or lists of games without any commentary.  It's not the kind of content that really generates thoughtful discussion or interaction.

Yep, the Classic Gaming General section has always been the main draw for me, and lately I just seem to frequent the same four or five threads and ignore the rest that seem somewhat pointless. There was a time where it was busier and there was a wider array of users, more of which simply enjoyed videogames, not necessarily just Atari. I joined up on this forum a long time ago because of the Jaguar, and the fact I started with a 2600, but I've always fallen in the former camp, being a fan of videogames and not a single particular brand. I do wish more users here were like that. Thinking back, even the Modern Gaming section had more active participants a long time ago now. Seems kind of slow these days.

 

I do suppose as you mentioned, it doesn't seem like a lot of people here are actively playing games very often. Or, if they are, they surely aren't talking about it as much as one would expect.

[Steven Pendleton]

Actually, I noticed a pretty large decrease in activity several months after I joined, and it's gotten worse in the past few months. It's not exactly a secret that I don't care about Nintendo or whatever at all aside from Metroid and Fire Emblem, and I don't exactly stop by the Nintendo sections often because of that, but now that I've seriously started to play arcade games for the first time in my life (yeah, I was born too late for that, and also in the middle of nowhere where there weren't any arcades anyway...), the fact that the only activity in the Arcade and Pinball section is basically just that one dude who spams his Youtube videos that nobody watches is very sad.

 

I've mostly moved over to the shmups forum recently as a result, as there is actual discussion over there, and I only really stop by here to read the few comments that do get posted in the sections that I read and to post in the time trackers for the most part, so...

[+Gemintronic]

What?  No love for PVSNESlib?

 

https://github.com/alekmaul/pvsneslib

 

[+wongojack]

There definitely used to be more discussion on here in general.  Forums have been dying now for a while.  I find that the High Score clubs are where most of the discussion happens about actually playing the games. Otherwise, it is rare when you happen to be playing the same classic game as someone else (on any system).

• Regarding SNES, I've never seen THAT much action and discussion on that system here.  NintendoAge dying probably hurt the overall English chit chat about that system on the internet.
• Regarding Arcade and Pinball, I used to chat a bunch on the BYOAC forums, but that is totally dead now.  I don't even think you can register anymore.

You'd think that forums dying might drive more conversation here to AtariAge, but that doesn't really seem to be the case.  I also kind of expected to see an uptick in Commodore discussion when Lemon64 and Amiga got ransomed, but that didn't really happen either. They are both back up now with what I would call a somewhat reduced throughput of activity.

 

I play just about everything, and I have more games and systems in my house than I can play before I die (and I'm healthy - lol).  My habit is to generally work on a backlog list I have, but I also just wander from system to system and game to game with a VERY wide range of genres, eras, emulators, real hardware, etc.  For example, I just bumped a thread in Arcade and Pinball about Return of the Jedi, but it will probably be years if anyone else decides to come talk about that game with me here (if ever).  I also bumped a thread in Classic Gaming General about the ZX Spectrum version of 1942.  Anybody happen to be playing that right now?  It might be 2 years or more before I get serious about playing a SNES game again - who knows.

 

Splitting interests further, I see people discussing 4 different categories of topics

1. Playing games
2. Collecting games
3. Programming games
4. Repair, modding, hacking systems

So even if you want to talk about SNES programming, you probably don't have an immediate interest to play a game in a SNES HSC.  In the same way, if you are looking for a boxed copy of Earthbound, you probably aren't also looking for a source of parts to RGB mod your SNES.  At least not at exactly the same time.  So, you are on the same board as someone and interested in the same system, but you really have nothing to talk about (at least not right now).  AtariAge is awesome in that it covers every system or computer that could be considered "classic" and all the major categories that make up the hobby, but if there aren't any users talking about a specific thing then all that diversity feels a little lonely.

 

 

[Cobra Kai]

1 hour ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Actually, I noticed a pretty large decrease in activity several months after I joined, and it's gotten worse in the past few months. It's not exactly a secret that I don't care about Nintendo or whatever at all aside from Metroid and Fire Emblem, and I don't exactly stop by the Nintendo sections often because of that, but now that I've seriously started to play arcade games for the first time in my life (yeah, I was born too late for that, and also in the middle of nowhere where there weren't any arcades anyway...), the fact that the only activity in the Arcade and Pinball section is basically just that one dude who spams his Youtube videos that nobody watches is very sad.

 

I've mostly moved over to the shmups forum recently as a result, as there is actual discussion over there, and I only really stop by here to read the few comments that do get posted in the sections that I read and to post in the time trackers for the most part, so...

I'm registered at shmups.com, but don't post at all. I mainly stop by to read strategies and tactics of whatever current shmup I'm into. That place depresses me because everyone there seems to be super geniuses at every shmup. I used to think I was a pretty good shmupper, but after browsing those forums you realize you're not very good at all.

[Cobra Kai]

1 hour ago, Austin said:

Yep, the Classic Gaming General section has always been the main draw for me, and lately I just seem to frequent the same four or five threads and ignore the rest that seem somewhat pointless. There was a time where it was busier and there was a wider array of users, more of which simply enjoyed videogames, not necessarily just Atari. I joined up on this forum a long time ago because of the Jaguar, and the fact I started with a 2600, but I've always fallen in the former camp, being a fan of videogames and not a single particular brand. I do wish more users here were like that. Thinking back, even the Modern Gaming section had more active participants a long time ago now. Seems kind of slow these days.

 

I do suppose as you mentioned, it doesn't seem like a lot of people here are actively playing games very often. Or, if they are, they surely aren't talking about it as much as one would expect.

I know exactly what you mean. Personally, I can't imagine limiting myself to a single platform for video games. But, we have members right here on this forum who only are interested in one video game console, and at least one member where that console isn't even an Atari! 

 

AA is the only gaming forum I actively participate in, but years ago like most of us, we were all posting on multiple boards. 

 

 

[Steven Pendleton]

Oh yes, I forgot to mention something: Discord and Twitter and Reddit exist. These things are sometimes blamed for killing forums. Is it true? I don't know and I don't care. Discord is trash, Reddit is stupid and apparently an echo chamber, and I have no idea how the hell Twitter even works. Blame them if you want, I guess.

 

12 minutes ago, wongojack said:

I also bumped a thread in Classic Gaming General about the ZX Spectrum version of 1942.  Anybody happen to be playing that right now? 

I played the arcade version recently, but it made me hate having functional ears, especially since it made me feel like I was no longer going to have functional ears, so I stopped almost immediately.

 

2 minutes ago, Cobra Kai said:

I'm registered at shmups.com, but don't post at all. I mainly stop by to read strategies and tactics of whatever current shmup I'm into. That place depresses me because everyone there seems to be super geniuses at every shmup. I used to think I was a pretty good shmupper, but after browsing those forums you realize you're not very good at all.

As a new shooter, I was hesitant to get into discussions over there, and the STG community has a very bad reputation for elitist bullshit, but that exists in every community, not just STGs, and once you actually get in there and start talking to people, you'll find that there are a lot of decent people on there who are more than willing to help you. It's a surprisingly nice place and I didn't expect to like it nearly as much as I do.

[+wongojack]

1 minute ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Oh yes, I forgot to mention something: Discord and Twitter and Reddit exist. These things are sometimes blamed for killing forums. Is it true? I don't know and I don't care. Discord is trash, Reddit is stupid and apparently an echo chamber, and I have no idea how the hell Twitter even works. Blame them if you want, I guess.

 

I played the arcade version recently, but it made me hate having functional ears, especially since it made me feel like I was no longer going to have functional ears, so I stopped almost immediately.

Reddit is the closest because you can actually have discussions in the subforums, but most of those are pretty transactional and less conversational.  "I need help getting this emulator to work" and you get your answer and never come back.

 

If you would prefer an absence of music then the ZX Spectrum is definitely for you - lol.  I don't mind the arcade sounds in 1942 so much.  I've always thought it was meant to sound like a telegraph, morse code, or some kind of onboard nav radio for a WWII aircraft.

[roots.genoa]

2 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Discord is trash

What do you mean? 🤔

[+wongojack]

4 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

What do you mean? 🤔

I don't think Discord is trash, but it doesn't replace forums for me.  The communication is mostly 'last in first out.'  Meaning that what gets read is whatever is put at the top of the thread.  This makes it hard to have an async conversation because if someone doesn't see your question before the next topic comes up then it will get lost in back of the pile.  I also don't really see Discord channels with as much organization as a site like Atariage where I can easily choose from many topics and even search for conversations about obscure subjects easily.  Discord also seems to very much align with the social media philosophy of notifications and alerts to keep you updated.  It tries to get your attention in a way similar to social media sites that I just don't appreciate, and of course, you must be invited to participate on a Discord channel.  Invites are usually easy to get, but that still means that all Discords are private and not searchable by non-members.

 

Anyway, I like Discord for what it is.  If you want to set up a Discord channel it is super easy and familiar (if you use it often).  That means that more topics likely will get discussed there than a forum and more people will be able to engage.  It is also able to give better options for synchronous communication including voice chat.  So, while it has its benefits, I don't see it as a replacement for forums.

[Steven Pendleton]

5 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

What do you mean? 🤔

Many things, including this:

1 hour ago, wongojack said:

The communication is mostly 'last in first out.'  Meaning that what gets read is whatever is put at the top of the thread.  This makes it hard to have an async conversation because if someone doesn't see your question before the next topic comes up then it will get lost in back of the pile.  I also don't really see Discord channels with as much organization as a site like Atariage where I can easily choose from many topics and even search for conversations about obscure subjects easily.  Discord also seems to very much align with the social media philosophy of notifications and alerts to keep you updated.  It tries to get your attention in a way similar to social media sites that I just don't appreciate, and of course, you must be invited to participate on a Discord channel.  Invites are usually easy to get, but that still means that all Discords are private and not searchable by non-members.

 

 

  

8 hours ago, wongojack said:

If you would prefer an absence of music then the ZX Spectrum is definitely for you - lol.  I don't mind the arcade sounds in 1942 so much.  I've always thought it was meant to sound like a telegraph, morse code, or some kind of onboard nav radio for a WWII aircraft.

I was actually considering simply playing the arcade version on mute... but then I remembered that its badass sequel 1941 Counter Attack exists and I was like why play this game when I can play that game instead?

Edited August 25, 2022 by Steven Pendleton