G-Shock to the system: PV-1000 / Pooyan / Super Cobra | NES Works Gaiden (Casio) 62
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ก.ย. 2024
- Hello! Want to learn more about Casio PV-1000 and other failed 1980s consoles in Japan? Check out my upcoming book, The NES Era Vol. I: Japan & the Road To NES, available exclusively via preorder at Limited Run Games: limitedrungame...
The PV-1000 was another would-be competitor to Famicom that vanished nearly as soon as it entered the world. Of all the failed consoles to emerge from Japan in 1983, the disaster that was Casio's PV-1000 seems the most like a massive own-goal. Between Casio's engineering prowess and the impressive lineup of arcade hits their licensing team managed to land, the PV-1000 had all the makings of a hit-a console at least on par technologically with Sega's SG-1000, if not a wee smidge better. But it flamed out on the launch pad, for reasons I can only speculate about in this episode.
But if you put aside the system's performance at retail and strictly focus on its software library, you end up with the most promising platform to have taken a fatal nosedive while the Famicom and SG-1000 ascended to the heavens. In the next few episodes, I'll be working my way through Casio's weird mix of solid adaptations and absolute marketing ineptitude. If you dig respectable albeit imperfect ports of B-tier early ’80s coin-op games, you're gonna love the PV-1000.
Special thanks once again to Christa Lee for modding this PV-1000 for composite output.
Production notes:
Video Works is funded via Patreon ( / gamespite ) - support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its TH-cam debut! Plus, bonus videos, eBooks, and more!
PV-1000 footage recorded from original hardware, modded for composite output by Christa Lee of Sound Retro Co. NES/Famicom footage captured from @analogueinc Nt Mini; SG-1000 footage recorded from Analogue Mega Sg Video; arcade footage generally captured from a MiSTer. All capture upscaled to 4K via Retrotink 4K or to 720p with an xRGB Mini Framemeister.
Jeremy's set design has reached the final form of "esteemed archivist"-ness
Not yet, I gotta paint that stupid spotted wall in the background
Jeremy 2k25 will have leather patches on his jacket's elbows.
@@jonothanthrace1530 Can't wait for him to grow a distinguished looking pipe from his lips.
The "shelves of stuff" aesthetic?
When I see windows behind video game reviewer's I always think of the nerds buffalo evacuation problem
I never get tired of these weird diversions. The secret history of video games in the 80s is a story of big swings born of big ambitions, that usually rebounded off the back wall and smacked them in the face.
With half of them having designs that make some of the prototypes of later consoles look downright graceful in comparison.
@@jonothanthrace1530 "A BIG HANDLE! Don't question it!"
@@fangjokerLS I heard this in JK Simmons's J. Jonah Jameson voice 🤣🤣
Best game history channel on youtube hands down
Did anyone else cry out in physical pain when they saw that keyboard?
That made my skin crawl.😢
Imagine what those membrane keyboard cash registers from 80s Burger King or other fast food places look like with that flame broiled residue in that environment.
I consume an unbelievable amount of content on video game history and I nevertheless knew nothing about Casio’s PV series.
I love this channel so much. It’s such a monumental achievement. Legendary stuff.
Just when I thought Ive heard of every console and microcomputer released in the early 80s, Jeremy drops by on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and says, check this out.
I'm really glad that someone else said that the US game crash was not indicative of gaming everywhere else. Being European I find this annoying with how many games were coming out on our home micros at the time
The fall of Atari and Commandore was not the end of video games.
The crash is one of the most overstated moments in history. Most people use it as an excuse to build up Nintendo as "the savior of gaming as a whole" when it was more of a revolution that changed how we see games.
There have been 0 days since last Xevious reference
This channel has the best coverage of these obscure old consoles you never hear about otherwise.
Thanks so much for all your hard work, Jeremy.
It is very odd to hear Casio pronounced Japanese-style, even if it's technically correct. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I knew Casio was a Japanese company before.
I love watching your videos at night, you have a very relaxed editing style that helps with my tiredness.
A very polite of saying that I bore you to sleep, much respect
@@JeremyParish LOL. All jokes aside, keep up the great work.
I own a Japanese book which is about the history of Casio’s hardware and it says the same thing that you do about why their product line failed. They tried too hard to capture every possible market and had several consoles out at the time, but there was no compatibility between them. Along with MSX they also had their FP-1000 and LSI games. Since the concept of 3rd parties didn’t exist yet, it was a tremendous waste of resources to make games that weren’t compatible with each other, and consumers were confused about what they needed to buy. The book gives the impression that it was the cost of resources needed to support several platforms at once as to why it was discontinued so fast, so one wonders what could have happened if they were smarter in their strategy.
Casio huh? Learn something new every video. Fantastic job as always with these definitive installments.
As for the crash in 1983.. I was 6 years old and didn’t quite know what was happening but I just remember older systems being super discounted and my father bringing home a couple cheap systems and I still had fun haha. Arcades were still kind of big in Southern California especially in bowling alleys, family fun centers and supermarkets always still had at least 3-4 cabinets to play. Arcade games, for the most part, were still developing and ahead of the curve in graphic quality during that time so I was always enamored with them.
Now this is the kind of stuff that I find really fascinating.
I'm a 42 year old veteran gamer starting in the atari and nes era, and I had no idea Casio made this. Great video ❤
I love your work on obscure consoles like this! Thanks a lot! :D
I wonder if some weird stuff was going on behind the scenes at Casio that led them to take such a scattershot approach to the home market. That or they just had overly high expectations for the systems, and when they failed to be met, instantly decided they didn't need to be in this market and cleared out.
Or maybe a Sega-like case of internal competition between divisions getting out of hand.
Definitely one of my favorite TH-cam channels. Your documentary style is super slick and fun to watch. Thank you for all the hard work.
The PV1000/PV2000 thing reminds me of the BBC Micro/Acorn Electron here in the UK. The BBC was designed for educational use but when Acorn saw how much the home-focussed Spectrum was selling they released the Electron as a cut down BBC Micro to compete with the Spectrum. The idea was it would be affordable, but very similar to what your kid used in school, that was the pitch. But they weren't quite cross-compatible; sometimes BBC games would work on an Electron, sometimes they wouldn't. Sometimes you'd get separate BBC and Electron releases of the same game. Sometimes you'd get both on one tape, with the Electron game on one side of the tape and an enhanced BBC version on the other. It was absolutely maddening and so confusing.
I'm so glad, I stopped just watching the videos about games I know and like - there is so much history and information in these videos.
You've just taken your first step into a much larger world
There was one positive thing about the North American video game crash that gets kind of overlooked, the deep discounts on consoles and games really opened up a lot of people to gaming. I have vague memories of my parents getting me a Atari 2600 and just a ton of games, and then going to the store to get another bunch. We weren’t rich by any means, but the system and games were so cheap they were hard to pass up. Buy the time the NES expanded across the country my family was ready for it.
Wow what a baffling decision. Honestly this era is so interesting in contrast to the static 4 consoles that are around now
PV-1000 and PV-2000 seems like Casio saying "we've got enough money, let's release two systems and see which one people like the most."
Love the Hitchhiker reference! Can't wait till you reach Dog town...
I needed to hear that I’m not a deadeyed sociopath today, thanks!
It's far from the only part I liked, given that it happens at 0:02, but I liked the part where you touched your watch and it made an audible sound.
How have i not heard of this. Awesome video. My Casio A168 says it’s time for bed… after I finish this video, of course.
Really enjoy these obscure console episodes 👍
I know a lot of Japanese companies fostered internal competition between teams back then. When I see things like the two Casio computer standards I tend to imagine two competing design teams and a VP with the bubble economy budget to say "screw it, I'll approve them both, let the market decide." But then both projects get sent to the same marketing division, which has full say over graphic design elements. And they decide to use the same packaging design for both to save on budget because _their_ VP is going to prove to shachō he's not as wasteful as that clown over in engineering approving all this stuff.
I knew the 90s where wild with different consoles due in a large part to the gaming mags I kept up with but the early 80s where a mystery and im glad your solving it
Jeremy came here to bless my weekend once again out of nowhere. Keep up your amazing work dude
I think I like the colors on PV-1000 Pooyan better, if we're being honest.
Also shoutouts to Casio watches; I've been using their basic calculator watch for a good 30 years now.
Am I alone in thinking Pooyan looks better on the 1000 than the 2000?
Whew… you do you, man.
I think in some respects it does look better. Some things look better on one and other things look better on the other. If the company had focused on a single system they probably would've made an even better version.
So excited this system is getting coverage
I think you said Casio enough times that Tim Rogers would be proud lol
People always bring 90s Sega as a prime example of very poor marketing, and yet, here is another company that managed to do much, much worse
The PV2000...the *New 3DS of it's day
In the Mandela Dimension, Casio is the third big console manufacturer, with Hudson and Sony having teamed up to push Nintendo out of the space before the Gamecube era to take the "innovative hardware reliant on first party software" niche.
Amazing work highlighting these historical consoles. I consider myself well informed wrt video games but I’m completely clueless about this aspect of video game history. Please keep it up!
Looking forward to the book!
I remember Casio from their keyboards and knew nothing of this... and so far the games seem not so impressive and the hardware release decisions, to have a "console" and "personal computer" version at the same time does not say to me that ignoring it was a mistake.
Still, I am here to learn whatever there is to be learnt from this, so proceed professor Parish! Enlighten me what happens when a keyboard and clock-maker makes a game console!
Never heard of it and I've been all about games since 86 or so. Thanks for the videos Duder.
I genuinely prefer the visuals from the PV-1000 compared to the 2K counterparts.
Pre Mario japanese games are fascinating to me
4:18 At first I thought that was a 53W, a watch I had in high school and still have today, but not quite. Something looked a little off, then the hard coded days of the week in the display gave it away. I love my Casio 53W calculator watch, I think it's pretty neat.
What did Casio Power have to say?
The Casio Watch-list
If you could go back to 1980 and have a bare minimum notion of the value of software backwards compatibility going forward, you'd be remembered as the ultimate era-defining visionary computer genius of the 1980's. It's not like Casio was unique. Apple's II/III/Lisa/Mac lines were all incompatible. It was kind of normal to constantly re-invent the wheel in the early 80's. Outside of a few university computer labs, almost nobody on the planet had any concept of "using old software" as a concept.
I had barely heard of their sticker console, but it's unfortunate this one didn't get a fair chance..!
How strange for the 1000 and 2000 series both existing at the same time. Really hedging their bets to be spread so thin.
I think I could listen to you talk about old video games and their histories for days at a time and never lose interest. No need for the all night mask here.
"you are not a dead-eyed sociopath" let's not get ahead of ourselves here
that said, just when i think you've covered all of the obscure weird failed japanese vaporconsoles that i've never even heard of, here we are
This channel is the bees knees.
Why did they rename Super Pac-Man to Mr. Packn?
Also, I'd never heard of these Casio consoles until this video, so thanks for covering something I haven't seen a million times before.
Y'know... it's odd. Clearly the PV-2000 versions are better, they have more detail, etc etc... But...
Honestly I think the PV-1000 games look better? They're obviously simpler, stripped down... But they use their colors better. They're just more attractive.
The Casio PV-1000 had a longer viable lifespan than “Concord.”
Even worse when you consider the fact that Sony allegedly spent 400 million dollarydoos on Concord expecting it to become a huge multimedia franchise, all the while refusing to read the warning signs that their own customers were sending them.
The PV-1000 looks like a Super VIC-20, if that makes sense. Its games move the way VIC games do, but with richer colors and more detail.
Cassy yo!
A couple of the Amiga releases in the 80's didn't make much sense either, as convoluted as Atari's.
Its strange to see a Casio as more than a watch or music keyboard. That smoking ring mustve been huge for a short period...or are there still new smoking rings coming out and Casio just doesnt promote them like watches and calculators.
I actually think that PV1000 Pooyan looks better than the PV2000 one... the kinda squashed sprites are a bit cuter and have more personality - also the 2000's pigs look like weird egg people. I did the vast majority of my Pooyaning on the C64, which might explain why I prefer that PV1000 version, cause it has a similar look.
I have to Pooyan
Wait, was that the Illusive Man himself Martin Sheen at the start of the video? Good taste, Mr. Parrish. 😊
Great video!
One nitpick though: The audio for the voice-over has enormous shifts in level at various points.
Dead Zone clip
I'm surprised that the MSX port of Super Cobra is closer to the one on PV-1000 than PV-2000.
Hi Jeremy, I imagine you have read all the same sources as me, but do you have any insight into what the graphics processor for this console actually was? The IC that is most commonly listed, for instance on wikipedia, is from NEC and has a long part code ending in an order # specifier of 31. However, firstly, folks who have opened these up have identified an IC with a code stamp ending in 30, and, more importantly, both of those chips seem to be finite state machines with hardware "code" not microprocessors. The chip seems to manage audio output by receiving binary values from the cpu to generate audio whose frequency is a ratio of the clock speed of the system. This would make it somewhat like the Atari 2600 TIA in that respect. As you say, the system clearly doesn't have a graphics processor related to the family of those for the Colecovision and other Z-80 based game consoles. I have heard it suggested that the system uses the Z-80 itself for graphics generation using interrupts like the ZX Spectrum does but I don't think that is possible given the super limited amount of ram compared to even a basic Spectrum unless maybe its works like a 2600 and "races the beam" to generate an image.
I think I have figured it out. This machine is a cursed combination of a Speccy and a 2600. It has a VDC like an RCA Studio II or 2600, not a coprocessor like an NES or SG-1000. It draws the graphics scanline by scanline with no frame buffer like a 2600, but, it uses character/tile based pseudo-graphics like a Spectrum or VIC-20. The 2k memory quoted on wikipedia is the system memory but it also has 1k character ram. The VDC and the CPU share a bus to the ram so the CPU can't run while the VDC is drawing the screen from the character lists saved in system ram. (although apparently it does get up time between lines not just during V-blank which is better than the 7800 lol) On the games "Naughty Boy" and "Dirty Chameleon" (holy crap those titles lol) you can see the way that "sprites" (actually custom characters) can't overlap like on a Spectrum game. This is because the system does not actually use sprites, it is all character based graphics. I don't think this kind of architecture is crippling, but it is certainly very limited with the 1k character ram.
Honestly? I think I prefer the "lesser" version of Pooyan, aesthetically, at least.
I don't know the window kind of makes him look God like....in a way I guess he is...atleast he got me to purchase a smokers ring
Interesting. A home version of Naughty boy eh?
Not a good one!
@@JeremyParish Eh. Its a weird game anyways, but so noted.
Sir, a suggestion for your show,
I know its pre Nintendo..
But perhaps at least one episode on the Crash of 1983. :)
Just a suggestion.
TH-cam said this video posted 9 seconds ago, and somebody already posted a comment before me. o_O
Not everyone gets it at the exact same time.
i find that math joke very average. Mid even.
Wow, mean
@@JeremyParish Sorry, I can't help it. It's my primary mode.
10:09 No, not the Love LIve! School Idol Festival 2 cancellation!
2:23 MAKE IT BIG