The Year of FDS Part 0 - Introduction

[@ProfBloomCh]

I wouldn't say Nintendo learned the "this is a bad idea" lesson with the FDS, given that the 64DD came to be.

[@TanookiSuit]

Just like their arrogance with the NES led to the N64 debacle, and not learning twice, then the crappy PiiU stinker riding that Wii high that killed their console division.

[@bobsmith8219]

Also the Nintendo Playstation

[@aducharme01]

Though ironically, they may have avoided some tough scrapes had they forgotten this lesson for the Super Famicom.

[@cappantwan2978]

2024, the year of the Famicom Disk System. Can't wait to see your thoughts on Metroid, Kid Icarus, and the other games that weren't Famicom carts.

[@MapleMilk]

Very Excited for the Disc System coverage I was just watching a video by Good Vibes Gaming about the Disc System They mentioned that it sold ~4 Million Units and was higher priced to get into but the games were way cheaper (or free for anyone in the know) What's gonna be interesting is seeing the later FDS games, because at some point they loop around from being the big ambitious games to being games that are so far behind the regular Famicom, it's shocking Like, because of the hardware, 1989 games look like they're from 1986, it's really a trip Very exciting series

[@filgate]

I'm so glad you're taking more of a break this year. I got into your videos at the end of Famidaily, and I've been enjoying your Epoch coverage. You make great videos and I'm happy to wait the extra day.

[@thedude3445]

This is cool! You should release a compilation video when it's finished, since KZbin watchers love those long videos to sit through.

[@bbr17]

Time to start The Year of the FDS playlist! I'm excited to see how the FDS games influenced the regular Famicom library before it faded away.

[@benstylus]

Add-ons are a bad idea because they fracture the userbase. So you don't see them anymore. Instead you now see the upgraded "pro" system refresh in the middle of a system's life. This means the early adopters of a system now get to play inferior versions of games released on their system compared to those who waited and bought the pro version. Honestly not sure if Sonic made a good future in the Playstation 4 and Xbox One zones.

[@retrojoe85]

Yeah, that's a series I was waiting for! The FDS has always been a mysterious platform for me.

[@video-luver769]

I love the Famicom Disk System, lol. Such a weird, wonderful little add-on.

[@thewingedavenger1007]

You did a great job of explaining the tech of this system, as it's crucial to gaming history. The FDS was the dawn of a new console generation. The first actual console gen was the Atari 2600 /Intellivision era. In 1983-1985 in North America we had the Atari 5200 and the Colecovision while in Japan the Famicom played the same games with similar graphics which were hugely superior to the Atari 2600: Pac-Man, Galaxian, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, Popeye, Mario Bros, Burgertime and Dig Dug. That was effectively the 2nd console gen, but it was cut short due to low sales outside of Japan and also due to the FDS in Japan. The FDS, NES and Sega Master System were the 3rd gen. I know Wikipedia and all the "historians" lump the Atari 5200 in with the Atari 2600, but that's just stupid. By that logic they should lump the PS1 and PS2 into the same console gen as well.

[@Stv101streamer]

I had to come here and watch from the start. My body is ready.

[@RndStranger]

If you want to watch from the start of the start, there's also the series on the Famicom...

[@therealquinnzack1819]

The day has finally arrived wooo!! You have no idea how excited I am waking up to this :)

[@sjake8308]

I've actually been really looking forward to learning more about the Famicom Disk System games! 😃

[@jpronny3668]

I am impressed by your ability to make videos of literally every retail Famicom/FDS game, hopefully this set of games contains less sugoroku and baseball 😉

[@striderskorpion]

I don't think it's any more difficult to replace the Twin Famicom's drive belt anymore than the FDS's. While I didn't switch the belts, I did swap the drives and that was fairly simple. I did that since the Twin had a drive that didn't have a protection against copying disks, but the FDS one did (for use with my Game Doctor). Not that I need it since I have a MGD1 that I can connect to my PC to backup my disks (I also have a cable to connect to the FDS, but it requires DOS to use).

[@GameKiwi]

It's not that more difficult, no. It's like maybe an afternoon's worth of work.

[@Cascadiawoodchippersociety]

It's easy IF you make a sharpie line down your gears from top to bottom so if the gears get rotated, you can line them up again without trial and error. My twin fami came with no belt and the gears were misaligned. Lucky for me the fds gives you a lot of error info to help you figure it out. The drive doesn't actually access specific files like a normal floppy drive. I don't understand the gears enough to explain it, but you will want to make that ink line!

[@ricklucas6216]

So excited! 2024 is going to be a great year!

[@elektriktoad2]

I must be lucky with my FDS collecting, I’ve got about 20 disks and only got burned once, with a copy of doki doki panic that doesn’t load and gives a disk error. The rest run great, have the right stickers and sleeves, and many with instructions. There’s a few good games in there, and I’m excited with this series to learn about any I missed!

[@esmerylan]

Me, watching this video: this Disk Writer kiosk thing is wild, I'm surprised a company as obsessed with controlling how people use their hardware as Nintendo ever went in for it! RndStranger: "Nintendo had two methods of copy protection..." Me: now that's more like the Nintendo I know! 😝

[@drrockso2027]

it's a shame that the Sharp Twin Famicom has reliability issues with it's Disk Drive(and a few other compatibility issues with other pieces of Famicom software and hardware), cause it's a strong contender for best looking home console of all time(especially the black version of the second model), still it's common enough and cheap enough that there's a decent chance I'll finally bite the bullet and get one this upcoming year(I'm going to be smart if I do engage in Famicom collecting and limit myself to just a handful of original games for display purposes and go with a flash cart for everything else probably)

[@FamicomLass]

I haven't heard of software compatibility issues with the Twin before. Do you have any examples?

[@Cascadiawoodchippersociety]

My red twin has no issues. What games does it not play?

[@vix_in_japan]

I was about to disagree with your assessment that manufacturer's learned add-ons were a bad idea as the PC Engine CD-ROM² did pretty darn well, but I think your assessment is right actually, it split the PC Engine market even if it's one of the more successful add-ons. That said, there are almost always more PC Engine CD-ROM titles on store shelves here in Japan than there are Hu-Cards in any given store. I do like the FDS, but there is one thing I can't forgive it for, there isn't a Famicom cartridge of Bobble Bobble. A travesty. 😂 Anyway, I'm really looking forwards to this series and I do hope you get something of that rest you promised yourself! Looking forwards to the Baseball review tomorrow ;) *runs*

[@mariusamber3237]

Of course, it was vastly more successful in Japan than elsewhere, can't deny that. I didn't even know this thing existed back in the day (then again, in Europe it was 'rare' in most countries, apart from France I think). I recall reading somewhere that the game sales weren't nearly as good as on Famicom, unless it was a big/well-established series like Tengai Makyou or the (HuCard) Momotarou games. PC Engine Fan probably has some good data on that. It was an interesting machine though for sure!

[@nate567987]

It also split nec and Hudson up

[@biostem]

Stoked for this!

[@BigAl2k6]

I cannot wait. I hope you like more baseball games lmao

[@rydog11]

So hyped for this series 🙌🏻

[@NickRetro-s4o]

Best channel on KZbin

[@darktetsuya]

Bring on the FDS coverage! I've probably only played a scant handful of the games, all via emulation so there's quite a lot I never really got around to.mostly the big ones like zelda and metroid (which to my surprise had the same save system that zelda did) So very curious to see if there's anything else good on the disk system. also curious about the 'ominous foreshadowing', haha.

[@viejodamis09]

Wait, but wasn't the PC Engine CD-ROM^2 a sucess?

[@RndStranger]

As I mentioned, the CD-ROM based add-ons were the most successful ones, but in the case of NEC it was still less popular than their base hardware. It really didn't help that they had multiple, incompatible CD-ROM management cards.

[@NukeOTron]

Wave table synthesis, eh? ...like the Game Boy's one modular wave channel? ...I figure it's worth asking about.

[@mariusamber3237]

There are some gems and oddities on this system too, this will certainly be quite interesting. Not too many baseball games or text-heavy games either (was there any sugoroku?).Either way, see you in 2024!

[@ezequielgomez7083]

My Top 5 Favorite FDS Games 5. Moero TwinBee (Stinger in US) 4. The Goonies 3. The Mysterious Murasame Castle 2. Famicom Grand Prix F1 Race 1. Falsion

[@video-luver769]

As an aside, I should have mentioned I have 4 FDS games, at least one of which I'm reasonably sure IS the exact game on the label because it's 100% CIB with the original clear plastic outer box. A second game I also suspect is original because it's also complete, just without the outer box. The last two are a gamble. My poor FDS has a broken drive wheel cable so I've never been able to test my games.

[@BagOfMagicFood]

Well OBVIOUSLY you start with Super Mario Brothers, Mario takes priority over everything

[@johnsimon8457]

I did not know the FDS could be battery powered. I like how Nintendo games are usually so locked down and the FDS is the Wild West of magnetic media, more akin to 8 bit micros

[@egnichiekevin9647]

Go back to the source. And I'm glad to listening a new ending.

[@mwk1]

Happy New [FDS] Year! 😎

[@inky3]

Oh rndstranger you spoil us with content

[@carlozulueta-de9hd]

Merry new year's eve ‼️😃

[@mjmobile]

Woke up to this! 🥳

[@joeyabuki5959]

Can't wait for more baseball! 😛

[@Bro3256]

I am beyond excited to watch this series from start to finish. Although curious, what is your method of loading disks that you don't own? I'm assuming you don't have a complete FDS set laying around.

[@johnclark926]

Thinking about the failure of console expansions makes me wonder why the mid-generation updates for Nintendo’s handhelds and the PS4 & XBONE seem to avoid failure. In a way they split their own user base as well, with performance targets and resolutions for the same game being exclusive to the upgraded system (sometimes there are exclusive games, such as the ones for the GBC and New 3DS), but since they get lumped together with the original console’s sales we never see if there’s any drawback. It’s really difficult to wrap one’s head around why people can accept buying an entire new system for incremental upgrades but have been so wary regarding extensions to their original console.

[@nate567987]

Because hardware was advancing on pc too fast

[@nate567987]

Nintendo did it with the new 3ds as well

[@Agostoic]

Here we go again!

[@rafadylewski7190]

>There's officially *191* games released for the FDS (even if the wiki says 200) >Playlist for this series features only *190* numbered videos So what exactly was missing from your collection?

[@RndStranger]

Nothing. There's multiple games that had multiple releases and I rolled those extra ones into the original game's video rather than make a second video where I said "This is the exact same game but five maps are different." I also didn't include prize disks or things that weren't commercially released.

[@drocles]

I quit collecting, i think i have 2 working games out of about 15. and im still not sure if its the disks or the reader. And neither are the game i was trying to buy😂 although bomberman was a nice surprise

[@drocles]

Do you know where replacement magnetic head readers can be found? I think that is the problem with the first fds i bought

[@nate567987]

@@droclesfirst confrim it’s not the belt

[@TheAlexSchmidt]

Well, they learned that lesson until the 64DD I suppose

[@JuanGomez-ke5py]

Final video of of this year

[@romannikonenko7325]

I've beaten only one FDS game up to this time (Esper Dream), but consider me very interested 😊

[@Toblerone5]

Yessss

[@stevep9177]

You say FDS collecting is a nightmare but you make it sound really easy. Got two mario disks? Well now one is a time twist disk. Nintendo themselves let you rewrite disks, and it's reasonable to assume someone would have rewritten a mario game. That means any official disk with any official game is 100% valid as a "real" copy.

[@stevep9177]

And yes that is how it works

[@nate567987]

Hell Mario is a one side game so slap Mario 2 on the other side

[@stevep9177]

@@nate567987 this guy gets it

[@JohnnyUndaunted]

Anyone who calls the PC Engine CD-ROM² a bad idea, knows absolutely nothing of the PC Engine.

[@anactualmotherbear]

A common misconception is that CD add-ons were successful. They were not. The Sega CD, the thing people love to point to as being a "good move" by Sega and claiming Nintendo was "behind the times," was not a hit. It sold less than 2.3m units, and when you consider Sega was #2, at the time, the other CD add-ons (like PC Engine,) were even bigger failures. The Famicom Disk System was, and remains, the best-selling add-on for a console. But, being "the best" in such a narrow field shows why it's a bad idea. FDS sold only 4.4m units. Not bad, but far from the install base of the Famicom. Can't wait to see this series in 2024!