Three companies eventually shared the 8-bit crown: NEC, with its PC-8800 series Fujitsu, with the popular FM-7 and Sharp, with the X1. The early 80s saw the release of the first fully-fledged 8-bit computers designed with average users in mind, rather than amateur programmers (although there were still plenty of those). Much like in the West, these early computers were primarily for electronics tinkerers and enthusiasts, and had to be programmed by the users themselves. Both NEC and Toshiba successfully developed their own microprocessors in 1973, and over the next few years a number of personal computer kits and homebew packages were released by companies such as Hitachi, Fujitsu, NEC, Toshiba, and Sharp. The personal computer industry in Japan began much like everywhere else: as a response to Intel's creation of the world's first microprocessor, the 4004, in 1971. Furthermore, emulators benefit from a range of swanky features, such as save states and frameskipping, which are invaluable given how flaky some old computers can be. But don't let these sad, misguided fools put you off - with Windows now having a respectable range of highly compatible emulators for just about every Japanese computer that existed, there's little need to struggle with archaic and difficult-to-acquire hardware. Some narrow-minded purists will frown on the idea of emulating these titles, insisting you should either buy the original hardware or go without. Finding a good game can become an annoying case of trial and error.īut nothing compares to discovering the holy grail of hearing music and seeing sights few others have, and clicking in that Saturn USB pad for some of the best gaming of your life (and anyone who doesn't own a Saturn USB pad for emulation should be ashamed of themselves). Even downloading complete file archives, which are always missing titles due to a lack of definitive listings, will often present you with folders in Japanese characters (assuming your computer can even display them). Erotic games constitute a large and important fraction of the Japanese computer game library, and some are definitely worth your time if you are comfortable with the content, but there are hundreds of other underappreciated titles in almost every genre.īut finding these by games by searching the internet with romanised titles often results in nothing, while using the original names will only bring up Japanese websites which Babelfish renders into lunatic gibberish. Until now, most English-language coverage has focused only on the "eroge" (erotic games, or hentai). If you want to play these games you have to work at it, since they're not easy to find, and rarely described in languages other than Japanese. Unfortunately, this important part of gaming history has been largely obscured by time and language barriers. The content is not always tasteful, but the lawless atmosphere resulted in some of the most unique titles in video game history. The content ranges from rampant drug use and presidential assassination ( XZR), to tender explorations of love, sex, and relationships ( Dokyusei), to mature and suspenseful horror ( Onryo Senki), and even to one of the first rape simulators ( 177), predating the infamous RapeLay by 20 years. These early games give us a rare glimpse into a world of Japanese creativity unfettered by censorship and outside pressures, which has never since been replicated. Japanese computer games were also exempt from any of the licensing and content restrictions that all console makers have imposed in various forms. The early Japanese computing scene was an intense flurry of creativity that launched the careers of many prominent figures in the video game industry, while also establishing some of the most famous video game companies, such as Square, Enix, Falcom, and Koei. In fact, some of Japan's most recognizable franchises, such as Metal Gear and Ys, actually began as computer games. For all that Nintendo started, it was the open hardware of NEC and other companies that allowed small groups to form and become giants. But there is another, mostly forgotten world of Japanese gaming history, in which thousands of games were developed for various Japanese computers over an 18 year period that stretches from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s. Japan has long been viewed by the West as a console-centric country, ever since Nintendo and the NES. except perhaps the world of Japanese home computers, arguably the last uncharted frontier for English-speaking games enthusiasts. Thanks to the Internet, nearly any game of the past can be downloaded and emulated, and almost every piece of information has been documented somewhere.
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