Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4083
Location: The Netherlands
Quibus wrote:
Mothrayas wrote:
The site has historically preferred NTSC over PAL for a few reasons:
• In most cases, it is the original release, and PAL releases or conversions came later.
• It's also the most popular release in most cases. Most games sell better overall in NTSC regions than PAL regions. The site's audience, though diverse worldwide, is also largely from NTSC regions. In general the audience will be more familiar with NTSC releases and their pace etc., than they will for PAL releases.
• The framerate difference between NTSC and PAL means that, generally, NTSC games are faster and smoother than their PAL counterparts, and therefore are better and more entertaining to watch.
• For older consoles like the NES, PAL conversions are notoriously poorly converted, with issues like messed up sound pitch, or physics differences resulting in additional glitches.
Not all of these reasons will apply in every case, but it's common enough to set a general standard for the site as a whole.
There is some dispute on this, but that's another topic.
For some MSX games, these reasons apply. But for some they obviously do not apply. One by one:
1. For MSX there are no separate PAL/NTSC releases/conversions. It only depends on the machine you run the game on what you get. Still, I would be fine with running games developed in Japan on NTSC/60Hz machines. But on the other hand, games developed in Europe would thus be more logical to run on a 50Hz machine.
2. See previous point.
3. That could be true. But people familiar with the games will find a typical European game run on an NTSC machine 'run oddly too fast'.
4. N.A. for MSX games.
I agree that using PAL systems would be warranted for games confirmed only to be released in Europe (or other PAL regions), but otherwise I think NTSC releases would be generally superior, due to reason 3 and the second half of reason 2.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
I understand that for reason 3 (mostly), but for reason 2 that really depends on the game. If your audience is Europe, all people will be generally more familar with the game running on 50Hz (even if it was a Japanese release). Audience from the USA doesn't really know MSX anyway. And for audience from Japan or Brazil, you'd expect they're used to 60Hz (NTSC/PAL-M). So it just depends on the audience and the game combination :)
And as such, I'd be very careful to try to apply some (old) general rule here. That's my point.
I think you're mistaken.
Also, your words do not fit the situation. There are no PAL games for MSX. It's a matter on what you're used to. E.g. I played The Maze of Galious for weeks on a European MSX at 50Hz. I know this game through and through. Whenever I play it on a 60Hz MSX, it feels quite wrong to me. The music goes too fast, that's the most important thing. (The rest I don't really notice.)
Now, this game was originally developed in Japan, so that would be a reason to prefer a 60Hz run (although it will make all texts display in Japanese if a Japanese MSX would be used).
But it shows the point: playing it on 60Hz whilst most people played it on 50Hz feels quite unnatural. (And the vice versa is also true of course.)
Hence it is impossible to please both camps with this system.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
