PlayStation 30th Anniversary: ​​What if Digital Foundry existed in the 1990s?

Digital Foundry first appeared in the pages of Eurogamer back in 2007, looking at the differences between Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 software – but what if DF actually appeared back in 1994, examining the fifth-generation consoles: Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation? We can answer that question today with the first in an episodic series in which DF Retro takes a look back at the consoles and games of the ’90s, using today’s tools and methodologies to compare games released on Sega and Sony platforms. .

Cross-platform development in those days was very different from what happens in the current era. For the past eleven years, Microsoft and Sony hardware have essentially used the same core AMD technology, which is PC-based in nature, streamlining game development. During the PlayStation and Saturn era, developers were faced with two fundamentally different boxes that generated 3D images in completely different ways (triangles on PS1, squares on Saturn), using completely different development environments. While it is acknowledged that the PlayStation’s 3D performance was significantly better than the Saturn’s, the Saturn was still able to deliver some impressive results, with many games possibly outperforming the Sony equivalent depending on how they were implemented. Developers had to be innovative in supporting multiple consoles, often taking completely different approaches to creating their ports, even if the end result looked very similar.

It is also worth emphasizing the importance of the “leading platform”, a concept that we tend to forget about in the current era. Back in the day – and even back in the Xbox 360/PS3 era – there was a concept where games were designed with specific target hardware in mind, playing to their strengths. This definitely showed up during the Saturn/PlayStation era, where PlayStation games could struggle on the Saturn – and yes, vice versa. In today’s video you will see some interesting examples of this game.

All of this brings us to today’s new episode of DF Retro, where John Linneman sets out to catalog the multi-platform racing and driving games of the fifth-generation console era, using methods we’ve developed over the years but applied to software from the mid-to-late ’90s. This was not easy, primarily because the analysis is based on digital video recordings, which were not available to us at that time. Thanks to HDMI modifications for legacy consoles, we now have this option…at least on PlayStation. The situation is much more complicated on the Sega Saturn, where the combination of video layers derived from separate VDP1 and VDP2 processors currently makes the use of HDMI modifications impossible. We have almost However, we managed to do it: Mike Chee’s RetroTink 4K processes and scales the RGB signals from Saturn to such a level of quality that we can work with video using our tools, making the comparison you see today possible.

However, even then we had problems. The digital output signal derived from an analog source is still not a pure HDMI signal, and in many cases manual verification of the performance data was required, and yes, we are talking about frame-by-frame verification. by eye. Meanwhile, let’s just say that the weird PlayStation game with screen tearing turned out to be quite difficult to handle, to the point where much older algorithms developed very early in Digital Foundry’s history proved useful.

However, I hope you enjoy this video because there is a lot of interesting stuff in it. The 90s were an exciting era for gaming as we moved from 2D to 3D and the entire generation was very experimental. The “Taboos” seen today weren’t a thing back then, so when viewed through the lens of modern publishing, it’s surprising to see WipEout and Destruction Derby—Sony’s first-party exclusives—end up on the Saturn. Yes, the conventional wisdom online is that PlayStation has the best experience, but for now we can quantify that through objective data and subjective comparisons. However, not every multi-platform release was a “victory” for PlayStation.

Otherwise, Sega’s console did provide some solid ports, with EA games like The Need For Speed ​​and Road Rash actually having significant advantages over the Saturn over the PlayStation. Ubisoft’s Street Racer sees the developer creating completely different visuals for every version of the game ever made! The PlayStation had a fully 3D landscape, the Saturn uses VDP2 for a Mode 7-style effect: both are excellent in their own ways. The deeper you delve into the development of multi-platform consoles in the ’90s, the more surprises you see.

Of course, today we are talking only about driving and racing, and this is only the first video in a series that we plan to release. We’re already well into the second shoot-’em-up episode, which is just as exciting in terms of how the games play to the strengths of each system, but in hindsight, there was a good level of crossover in the games released for both systems . platforms, the concept of exclusivity was much stronger in those days – and not only the first developers themselves created these games. Back then—much more than now—there was a real reason to own both systems, as I did, even though I’ve been editor of the official Sega Saturn magazine since 1996.

As for Digital Foundry’s concept of content creation in the 1990s, it would have been challenging, to say the least. We had frame grabbers that digitized the analog inputs, and we could capture RGB images of good, even perfect, quality to the point where they were presented in a way that didn’t quite reflect the CRT experience. Video capture was possible since we occasionally received VHS tapes or, in the case of the N64 at E3 1996, a broadcast-quality beta camera tape (long lost before the archivists emailed me), but “digital video” of sufficient quality to scan for duplicate frame information would be nearly impossible. The move from analog video outputs to digital changed everything, it came with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and this is where the DF story actually begins.