You know what I mean, those add-ons that allow you to play "better" games. Sega CD, Jaguar CD, 64DD; they all failed.
The only one I can think of which succeeded by any degree would be the SNES CD add-on, which most people know better as the Playstation. Not quite the success Nintendo was hoping for.
But to the point, has there ever been a console add-on which actually succeeded, as intended?
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From: Altimadark | #012 And that tanked. Your point?
You're saying you can't include Japanese success', but yet you include a Japanese failure. That is contradictory.
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IIRC, you could go put a Famicom game on a disk for a fraction of the price. When you were done, you could have them erase it, and put a new game on there. It was pretty successful, though it was never brought over to the States.
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Altimadark posted... Okay, I'll give it a chance. Tell me about the Famicom Disk System.
Here's the very short story - In Japan, the first two Zelda games were FDS games. That shows the add-on wasn't really necessary, but it also shows that it had some decent selling software where it existed. Both beat a million in Japan, which was quite the feat at the time, and today they don't sell that in Japan even without being attached to add-ons. I can't think of a game released for any other add-on that comes even close. Hell, hitting 1 mil on base hardware in a single region is a mean feat today. The fact that you had to buy the NES, the FDS, and the game to get Zelda past a million in Japan alone is pretty stunning in a market that bought maybe (maybe) 1/3 of what is bought today.
The modern equivalent is like having Oblivion come out on an add-on for the 360 (and the 360 alone) and still being one of the best selling games of the year without a doubt. Your mind would probably be blown if Oblivion sold as much as it did while requiring the 360's HDDVD expansion, and so would mine. And that's what LoZ did. It sold massive numbers at the time (record breaking in some regions) and it did so while requiring specialized hardware on top of general hardware (In Japan, of course).
TLDR version - Zelda sold a **** ton on the FDS in Japan despite everything going against it, and is certainly the exception to the "rule" in this case. It was a huge success in Japan despite doubling up on required hardware, and the volume it sold proves without a doubt that the secondary-level hardware it played on wasn't an utter failure.
Super simple version - unless the FDS sold less than 2 million units in Japan and no one bought anything other than Zelda, then it had to have done decently, even though it doesn't compete with a full console.
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LeonhartFour posted... The Expansion Pack isn't an add-on in the sense that he's talking about.
Yes it is; you couldn't play some games without it (notably Majora's Mask, if memory serves).
And notably MM sold like...1 mil to OoT's 8 mil or something like that? ...Yeah, not really a success.
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Altimadark posted... The Wii Fit doesn't count in this regard any more than the Power Pad or the Zapper does.
The Zapper came with the system--it was bundled even back before SMB was bundled. So...not an add-on.
The Power Pad seems like a fair comparison, yes, but notably I had never heard of the Power Pad before your post.
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Okay, just to clarify, I'm only counting add-ons as attachments to the main system which directly enhances its performance in some way (ie, processing, graphics, sound), expressly for the purpose of handling more enhanced games. By comparison, accessories such as the Wii Fit and Zapper don't count because they aren't enhancing the hardware of the system so much as they're providing an alternate controller.
Hope that clears it up.
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Again only in Japan, but the Satellaview add-on for the SNES seems to have been moderately successful.
It allowed people to download modified versions of SNES games which were designed to be played alongside a live broadcast, sometimes with a 'host' triggering strange gameplay effects at certain times, like a DVD board game.
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They are completely different processors with their own instruction sets, they just happen to come in the cartridge with a specific game. You're plugging a piece of hardware into the SNES. In that way they are actually pretty similar to the Sega CD or 32X, just different in that they come in the cartridge instead of being separate. Both are quite different from save batteries and whatever.
I don't recall the N64 Expansion Pack doing that well... but then I never had an N64, so I'm probably missing some details. Mind clarifying them for me?
As far as the chips go, weren't those on the games themselves? If it's hardware that's on the game cartridge itself, I'm not counting it. If I did, I may as well include save batteries and ROM chips. Thanks for bring it up, though. It seems i was not as thorough as I'd thought.
I'm on the fence with Satellaview. It doesn't sound like the games are actually a step up in terms of technology, but you could still argue that stuff like the live broadcast enhances the game. Hmm... For the moment, I'm going to lean towards "not an add on," but I'd be more than willing to hear a counterargument.
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There never was a post. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and refracted the light from Venus.