strygo wrote:For a long time, my small town didn’t have a Toys R Us, so it was a treat to visit the one at the larger mall a few towns over.
In the SNES era, Toys R Us had a SNES kiosk and I vividly remember the visuals of it. The screen was flat, crystal clear and scanlines were present. Every time I visited, I made a point to check it out and I was always envious. It looked otherworldly good to me. At the time I was still using RF.
I’ve since found photos of the kiosks online but I haven’t found details of the monitor or what video signal was used. I would guess RGB, but I could be mistaken. It was so much better than what I could reproduce until much later.
Even back then, there was a wide disparity of video quality in use, and Nintendo spared no expense in showcasing their games in the best possible light. Arguing Nintendo really wanted you to use RF is silly - they would have shown RF off if they thought that would move the most units.
I don't know what monitor or tv that was, but this was probably a setup either by Nintendo of America employees or Toys R us themselves, and not representative of what the game developers from Nintendo of Japan were thinking about.
I really doubt they were developed with RF in mind. RF was an outdated format by the early 90's already, so in most likelihood it was for Composite and S-video they were testing with. In fact Nintendo did release official S-video cables for almost all their systems from the SNES onwards (at least in Japan), indicating they had those in mind as optimal video connections. RGB was accessible on the SNES and did even receive an official cable in Japan but they never followed up on that as none of the later systems had RGB. Not even the Gamecube and Wii (although I hear the Pal systems had RGB, or at least some did). Is it worth updating to RGB by modding our consoles anyway? Yes I think most people would agree it's worth doing even if only to have as an option, but it's impossible to say RGB was the intended picture when it wasn't even available on the majority of the consoles.
strygo wrote:All of this leads me to agree with maxtherabbit’s sentiment. Money is a key driver in forcing peoples’ taste. You will find lots of people who argue that a RetroPie is superior to real systems. Notably, most people who still operate real systems also have a RetroPie. There is room for both, and if you can afford both, you have more options.
Similarly, with displays, I would venture to say that most people who have a PVM or BVM also have a consumer CRT, an upscaler and even an LCD. Arguing superiority is somewhat silly - why not all of the above? The answer invariable comes down to money and then space (which is also directly related to money).
To be clear, there is something pure about optimizing for biggest bang for the buck, just like optimizing for the absolute best experience by sparing no expense. No one would argue the RetroPie or the GBS isn’t a great value. Similarly, no one can really argue that more choice isn’t “better.” It would seem this debate really comes down to a muddied attempt to reconcile these two extremes.
I completely agree with the second and third paragraphs, and it's because PVM/BVM owners also have consumer tubes that the divide started in my opinion. Once you see both you are able to decide which you prefer.
However I disagree on the financial part. Of course some people might be getting whatever they can get their hands on, but most people on dedicated message boards like here spend a fortune on acquiring original hardware and games, as well as modding all their consoles for rgb, buying high end cabling, getting high end switch boxes, adapters and so forth. In fact just assuming they buy the consumer tube for 50~100 usd for one in good shape, they'll likely still spend over 500~700 usd for all the equipment assuming they have about 8 consoles (that's not counting the modding). If they have more then they need a second switch box and more cables, since most people buy superg's switch and high end cables it could easily reach the 1000+ usd. People with that kind of disposable income and that level of dedication to getting the best picture they can are not going to cheapen out on the tv itself, and yet you have a very strong split between those who favor pro and those who favor consumer grade tv's.
The biggest difference is in how the image looks. There is a distinctive difference between pro and consumer models, and then even within those two categories there are also many variations (such as PVM vs BVM, and shadow mask consumer vs aperture grille consumer etc). I think it's a great idea to try and see all the different options so that people can find what works best for them.
To me no amount of money could make my bvm/pvm's look more pleasant to my eyes. You can't just downgrade the picture quality to say composite as it only makes things worse. The lack of blooming, visible mask and the thick scanlines are there to stay.
There are even some people who prefer composite if you can imagine that. I know some people who despite having all the RGB gear prefer to stick to composite connections for everything. You can also see it on emulation message boards as they have been improving the color bleeding aspects of composite for composite shaders. If that's what they like who's to say they are wrong? In my opinion it's a lack of respect to assume they prefer what they prefer because they aren't financially able to go for better.