PC "Launch Titles"

[Cloud121]

Not sure if this should go into Classic or Modern gaming.


Anyway, I like to collect launch titles for consoles. In fact, after my Resident Evil collection, I'd say collecting the launch titles for all my consoles is my second priority. I've gotten back pretty heavily into PC gaming this last year after taking ten years off. In building my collection, I've noticed that I don't have any "launch titles".


The closest to launch titles I can think of are Halo 2 and Shadowrun for Vista. Perhaps Doom for Windows 95 (Does that even count? Afterall, Microsoft used it to try to legitimize Windows 95 as a gaming platform)? Why not games that represent launch of new technologies? What was the first game to truly take advantage of DirectX 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10? Same goes for OpenGL.


My next guess for "launch titles" would be GPU pack-ins. Afterall, they are usually picked to showcase the new card. One example is Arkham City being included with 500 series nVidia GPUs last year, or Borderlands 2 being included with the 660 Ti just launched this week. I remember I got Earthseige 2 as a pack in with a GPU as a kid.


But at the same time pack-ins and launch titles are two different things in my book.


What do you all think?

[Jaruff]

I wouldn't count Doom because it's a DOS game. The game was popular before Windows 95 came around. Imo, the "launch title" for Windows 95 would be Command & Conquer. Came out shortly after Windows 95 launched and IIRC, it was marketed as a DOS and Windows game out of the box.

[Jorpho]

I think one of the big "launch titles" for Windows 95 was Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, actually.

The original, pre-DirectX release of Sonic CD was originally intended to show off PC hardware as an OEM release, such as with Packard Bell. See http://info.sonicretro.org/Jim_Tretheway_interview_by_RyogaMasaki_%28Septembe r_2000%29 .

There were a lot of pack-ins with video cards even before the era of 3D acceleration. I think a lot of sound cards (including Creative) included them too, and so did CD-ROM drives at the dawn of the multimedia fad. The best source for more information would be the magazines and advertisements of the era.

[YoshiM]

I wouldn't count Doom either as it came out in 1993. I downloaded it off Prodigy when it became available.

There was a Mechwarrior 2 that came out around Win 95 launch as it was part if the Direct X demo disk stores were sent ( I worked at Sears at the time)

[Griking]

I wouldn't count Doom because it's a DOS game. The game was popular before Windows 95 came around. Imo, the "launch title" for Windows 95 would be Command & Conquer. Came out shortly after Windows 95 launched and IIRC, it was marketed as a DOS and Windows game out of the box.

My first PC was an Apple IIc which came with Lemonade Stand so to me that's my launch game.

[YoshiM]

I wouldn't count Doom either as it came out in 1993. I downloaded it off Prodigy when it became available.

There was a Mechwarrior 2 that came out around Win 95 launch as it was part if the Direct X demo disk stores were sent ( I worked at Sears at the time)

[sheath]

My Matrox Mystique 4MB graphics card came with specially designed versions of Mechwarrior 2, Demolition Derby 2 and a few other games that had enhanced textures and maybe lighting over the standard PC versions. I also own a version of Virtual On that will only run on a Pentium 1 and checks for MMX before it will even install. I would love to get this one running on any system past a Pentium 1 because it seemed to be nearly Model 2 perfect when I could run it.

[Jorpho]

I'm sure I can recall reading about numerous patches for the PC version of Virtual On, but I cannot seem to find them at the moment.

[sheath]

It would be awesome if there was one. It seems to just be a manual check for something specific to a Pentium 1 MMX chip. Otherwise later AMD and Intel processors should be more than compatible.

[Jorpho]

Eureka!
http://web.archive.org/web/20050311015114/http://delta.skali.net/~vogz/Sections/Downloads.htm

Download links don't always work on archive.org, but these do.

[sheath]

Eureka!
http://web.archive.org/web/20050311015114/http://delta.skali.net/~vogz/Sections/Downloads.htm

Download links don't always work on archive.org, but these do.

I wonder why the system didn't email me two days ago about this. Awesome! Thank you. Now to see if I can get it to work in XP or better yet on my Windows 7 64-bit HTPC. ;)

[Nz17]

Don't forget King's Quest for the PCjr. It practically launched the IBM-compatibles!

By the way, I think this would be a better topic for the Classic Computer Gaming (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?45-Classic-Computer-Gaming) sub-forum so I'm moving it there. Besides, the fine folks which frequent that forum are likely to be very knowledgeable about this topic and give you lots of input. :)

[tom]

Pentium MMX had a pack-in, some racing game to show off the MMX capabilities :
>>>>>POD was published in 1997. It was one of the first games to support the MMX instruction set and came bundled as an OEM version with computers using Intel Pentium or Pentium II MMX<<<<<

[NayusDante]

Don't forget King's Quest for the PCjr. It practically launched the IBM-compatibles!

By the way, I think this would be a better topic for the Classic Computer Gaming (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?45-Classic-Computer-Gaming) sub-forum so I'm moving it there. Besides, the fine folks which frequent that forum are likely to be very knowledgeable about this topic and give you lots of input. :)


I swear that one of the original KQ collection bonus videos had Ken Williams talking about how IBM approached them, but my discs are packed for moving. I did find this (http://www.gog.com/en/news/from_monochrome_to_monarchy_kings_quest_history_pt _2), which seems to verify that.


In 1983, IBM was hard at work developing a new desktop computer aimed at educational and home-use purposes. Targeting a release date in 1984, the IBM PCjr would different hardware options to appeal to different consumer bases9, but its most appealing features were its 4.77 megahertz processor, 128 kilobytes of memory, and staggering 16-color display.10 IBM, familiar with Sierra's success in the computer games arena, approached the Oakhurst-based developer with a request: design a game that would showcase the power and potential of its upcoming PCjr hardware11. Roberta Williams rose to the challenge.

Still, I'm really interested in seeing if KQ was indeed the first true game released for the PCjr. I know IBM published it, just look at the original box art:

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