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Hi-Ten Bomberman!
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parallaxscroll



Joined: 27 Mar 2008
Posts: 34

PostPosted: Tue May 03, 2011 4:41 pm    Post subject: Hi-Ten Bomberman! Reply with quote

Hi-Ten Bomberman -- "Hi" for High Definition, "Ten" for ten players. Created in 1993 for Japan's widescreen HDTV format called HD-Vision, came more than a decade before Xbox 360 came out. Hi-Ten Bomberman was the ancestor of Saturn Bomberman, but to me Hi-Ten looks better. Hi-Ten Bomberman ran on a custom NEC PC which ran the game and two PC Engine CoreGrafx consoles for inputs. The HDTV display was probably a plasma set costing more than $10,000.



Quote:
Overview
Hi-TEN Bomberman was the world's first HD-TV video game and was used by Hudson Soft to demonstrate their HD-TV technology. The first version demoed at the 1993 Hudson Soft "Super Caravan" as part of a Bomberman competition and ran using two PC Engine CoreGrafx (5 players on each machine) and a computer to output to the HD-TV. For the 1994 contest, the game was apparently updated to run on a Project Tetsujin "IronMan" prototype board, which many believe eventually became the PC-FX. This version of Bomberman featured up to 10 players and purportedly included Bonk, though this has not been confirmed. Hi-TEN Bomberman was later ported to the Sega Saturn under the name Saturn Bomberman, and Saturn Bomberman does feature Bonk, so it is likely that Hi-Ten also featured Bonk. In 1993, Hi-TEN Bomberman was given the Committee Chairman's Award at the "High Vision Awards 93" hosted by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. Many believe that the game was never released on the PC-FX due to NEC's strict content guidelines on the system, though it was eventually ported to the Sega Saturn.


http://bonkzonk.com/game.ktn?Game=htbm#ss



Quote:
Hi-Ten Bomberman
Developed by Hudson Soft - Action - Unreleased

Hi-Ten Bomberman was a game that was originally planned to be released on the PC-FX, however due to NEC's publishing guidelines, Hi-Ten would never be released for the unit. The game in its original form would never be for sale, but it did however make an appearance in the Hudson Soft Gaming Caravan back in 1993 as part of a competition. Hi-Ten Bomberman was a 10 player version of the popular PC Engine/TG-16 game "Bomberman", and was formatted for play on wide-screen HDTV's - the first game ever for the HDTV standard (at the time, HDTV's have been in Japan for many years). You could play as many different characters like "Bonk" or "Bomberman" (Woman or Man) and many more. It is believed that Hudson Soft later released this version, redone slightly, as "Saturn Bomberman", which includes the PC-FX "widescreen" 10-player mode. Saturn Bomberman is basically what the PC-FX version should have been like.


http://www.pcenginefx.com/PC-FX/html/pc-fx_world_-_f_r_-_hi-ten_bom.html




Here are some screenshots and rare footage.







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijWXi-vUzrM
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Asaki



Joined: 19 Apr 2009
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PostPosted: Wed May 04, 2011 11:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jeepers.

And I thought the DS Bomberman games were ridiculous.
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parallaxscroll



Joined: 27 Mar 2008
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PostPosted: Wed May 04, 2011 3:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

How do you mean?
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Asaki



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PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2011 12:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That stage at ten players max is much larger than the DS's stages at eight players max:

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Kid Fenris



Joined: 17 Sep 2003
Posts: 300

PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2011 6:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So what were these "publishing guidelines" of NEC's that kept Hi-Ten Bomberman unreleased?

I didn't know that NEC had strict provisions on what publishers brought out for their systems. In fact, it's strange that the PC-FX didn't get a Bomberman game.
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parallaxscroll



Joined: 27 Mar 2008
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PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2011 9:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kid Fenris wrote:
So what were these "publishing guidelines" of NEC's that kept Hi-Ten Bomberman unreleased?

I didn't know that NEC had strict provisions on what publishers brought out for their systems. In fact, it's strange that the PC-FX didn't get a Bomberman game.



I don't know much, all I know is NEC wanted the PC-FX to have mostly FMV/anime based games. It is sad that Hi-Ten Bomberman never got released for the PC-FX. Saturn Bomberman's 10-player mode looks conciderably worse graphically.
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parallaxscroll



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PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2011 12:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

here's a little jem of a post:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2242730&postcount=4


Quote:
I played Hi-ten Bomberman (it was running on a PC) at Hudson HQ in Sapporo about ten years ago. It was fucking amazing. There were like, separate mini-battles going on between groups of two or three players. It was chaos and terror all the way.
It would be PERFECT for play on 360 Live Arcade.


There were definitely lots of stages. The game had been properly tested and bug checked. It was very polished, lots of power ups and a couple of things that were (at that time) new to the series.
I am emailing someone about it right now.


And to reiterate, it was running on a PC, which means somewhere, someone has it. The motherlode.
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I am Christina Aguilera



Joined: 25 Feb 2006
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PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2011 1:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Along that thread, I wonder what becomes of Hudson HQ with the Konami buyout? Does it (and all fun oddball Hudson historical items) still exist as a separate Konami subsidiary office, or did everything get moved?
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Tongueman



Joined: 27 Feb 2004
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PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2011 1:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

parallaxscroll wrote:
a little jem:


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neomerge



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PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2011 2:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

wow that's impressive.
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Kiddo



Joined: 11 Jul 2008
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PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2011 5:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kid Fenris wrote:
So what were these "publishing guidelines" of NEC's that kept Hi-Ten Bomberman unreleased?

I didn't know that NEC had strict provisions on what publishers brought out for their systems. In fact, it's strange that the PC-FX didn't get a Bomberman game.


I myself also find it -very- hard to believe that PC-FX guidelines prevented a release considering the PC-FX standards were lax enough for -eroge- and games that were so unpolished they looked half-complete to be released on it.

BTW, linking this like I did on Digitpress, here's a NicoNicoDouga video which has some footage of the game in the end, similar to the one AssemblerEX upped but without their watermark.

http://video.niconico.com/watch/sm481030
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Ethane



Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 22

PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2011 11:50 pm    Post subject: Re: Hi-Ten Bomberman! Reply with quote

parallaxscroll wrote:
The HDTV display was probably a plasma set costing more than $10,000.





Not exactly on-topic but the first plasma set I saw was around 1998 and to the tune of no less than $25,000. It had to be more than that. I'm curious as to what the actual resolution is for the game, 1080p or even 1080i would have been absolutely insane in 1993.
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Vlcice



Joined: 22 Sep 2005
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PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2011 3:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm curious what the resolution was too. MUSE/Hi-Vision TVs were around since the late 80s and used 1035i: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_sub-Nyquist_sampling_encoding But that doesn't mean the game ran at that resolution, so I guess it could be anything. Hi-Vision LDs ran a lot lower than that.
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parallaxscroll



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PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2011 7:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I too would like to know what the resolution was.
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Tongueman



Joined: 27 Feb 2004
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Location: Japan

PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2011 2:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

As posted on Digital Press:
Quote:
Simply counting the # of blocks on the Bomberman screen, assuming they are 16x16 pixels, puts the screen resolution at around 624 x 448, noninterlaced probably.
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Kid Fenris



Joined: 17 Sep 2003
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PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2011 5:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

parallaxscroll wrote:
I don't know much, all I know is NEC wanted the PC-FX to have mostly FMV/anime based games. It is sad that Hi-Ten Bomberman never got released for the PC-FX. Saturn Bomberman's 10-player mode looks conciderably worse graphically.


Yeah, I've heard of NEC's fervent belief that full-motion video clips were the game industry's future, but I can't believe they'd kill a Bomberman game over it.

Then again, the PC-FX flopped so fast that it must've aborted plenty of titles. After all, Hudson canceled Tengai Makyo III, the only thing that would've moved the system in Japan.


Last edited by Kid Fenris on Mon May 09, 2011 5:04 pm; edited 1 time in total
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parallaxscroll



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PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2011 4:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

video now uploaded in HD!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KVoPogwVts
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Kiddo



Joined: 11 Jul 2008
Posts: 87

PostPosted: Sun May 15, 2011 5:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

parallaxscroll wrote:
video now uploaded in HD!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KVoPogwVts


Not an attempt to rain on this parade too hard, but I don't think there's anything to gain out of an obvious upscale of what is likely old lasrerdisc footage. The old video and the new video may as well be one and the same to me.
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TheRedEye
The Internet's Frank Cifaldi
The Internet's Frank Cifaldi


Joined: 26 Aug 2003
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Location: Oakland, CA

PostPosted: Sun May 15, 2011 10:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kiddo wrote:
parallaxscroll wrote:
video now uploaded in HD!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KVoPogwVts


Not an attempt to rain on this parade too hard, but I don't think there's anything to gain out of an obvious upscale of what is likely old lasrerdisc footage. The old video and the new video may as well be one and the same to me.


Yeah, upscaling using whatever he used is just adding new information to the video that wasn't there before, for archival purposes the standard def video is better (that way it can be upscaled by the end user).
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Ethane



Joined: 11 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: Mon May 16, 2011 1:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have a theory about this considering what Tongueman pasted about the possible resolution and how this is running. Notice the controllers are standard PC-Engine controllers, and then go to 0:44 in the video. Past the blue haired girl's shoulders looks like a grey PC-Engine with something attached to the port where the CD attachment goes.

The PC-Engine can pull off a horizontal resolution of 512 easily, which I think what's being done here. I'm also reminded of the hardware trick the Genesis used to get 448 vertical resolution for Sonic 2. Tongueman, is it possible that's what's going here just with a regular PC-Engine?
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