Why The Super A'Can Failed! - Rare Console History
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- Опубликовано: 8 дек 2024
- #SuperACan #RetroGamingHistory #RetroConsoles
Today Top Hat Gaming Man discusses the history of the Super A'Can and why it failed!
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@TopHatGamingMan
A man in a top hat, with a dashing moustache or a highly distinguished beard, reviews rare video games in his massive collection. Appreciate the finer things in life! Top Hat Gaming Man travels around the globe, playing the best games for the handhelds around the world. The best games are like fine wines and only get better with age. Today, Top Hat Gaming Man discusses the history of the Super A'can and why it failed.
Additional Footage
Super Acan Console Shots - Squad Zombie
• Funtech Super A'can re...
Super Acan Console Shots - The Retrogames World By Matteo Turchi
• 18 - Super A'Can - Rec...
Speedy Dragon Gameplay - dhgHunter
• Video
Boom Zoo Gameplay - Stranno
• Video
Journey to the laugh Gameplay - dhgHunter
• Video
Adventure in Africa Gameplay - petsasjim1
• Monopoly Adventure In ...
Sango Fighter Gameplay - dhgHunter
• Video
Free Backgrounds -
• No Copyright Video, Ba...
Online Info Sources -
en.wikipedia.o...
videogamekraken...
tvtropes.org/p...
www.giantbomb....
www.videogameco...
web.archive.or...
Images compiled via the links above and through Google images.
Thank you to all!
![[Low Score Boy] A'can: An ill-fated video game console from Taiwan (English subtitled)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ycy861t9m_A/mqdefault.jpg)
This guy needs more subs, every video has historical value he doesn't post fillers.
*this*
@@dexterkoula3407 that
I fear the video game "cheesecake" thumbnails might put off some viewers.
It does have quite a few adverts though.
i think this may be the first obscure console you've covered that I have never heard of and I love researching obscure videogame history.
no it's one of the few in a while i HAVE heard of at least from wikipedia
I almost fell off my chair when I saw the A'Can 32X-ish Mushroom.
Also, while you don't mention it, the console also has a righ-side lid with an edge-connector meant for a CD drive, just like the Mega-CD.
8:19 I'm guessing the thinking went something like this:
"We want to include a bunch of famous characters from different countries. Who is the most famous Frenchman that will be recognized in our country?"
"Napoleon was a famous French emperor who took over Europe for a while."
"Okay, Napoleon is in. How about a famous historical Englishman?"
"Sherlock Holmes was a famous English detective who probably visited Africa at some point."
"Okay, Sherlock Holmes is in. How about a famous German?"
"Well Adolf Hitler is the most famous German I know."
"What is Adolf Hitler famous for?"
"He was the prime minister of Germany for over a decade."
"Okay, Adolf Hitler is our third character."
Bonus points for the guy thinking Hitler is German :D
I believe that "cartoon Hitler" as also used in adverts for heating on Taiwan. "Declare war on the cold front" I think it was. Weird!
Good video!
James O'Grady and I recall seeing that in a bowling game on a cheap Plug-and-play system.
Could have had Stalin, for a Cold War pun.
Man, I fuckin love this guy!! The way he talks is really comical and he always cheer me up. I dunno, his videos just makes me laugh. And that is a vital thing these days. Hey, if The Top Hat Gaming Man ever needs some original music for his videos, I'll supply it free of charge! (I'm a D'n'B producer, but I can create pretty much anything). As soon as I'm working again I'll be becoming a patron - if he cheers other people up like he does me, it's money well spent in our fucked up world. All the best mate, keep 'em coming!
I do recognize Sango Fighter, as it was released to MS-DOS in the 90s. Pretty decent Street Fighter II clone, set in Romance of the Three Kingdoms era China.
Your channel is criminally underrated. I honestly think it's quite informative and, at times, meta.
Wow, a 68000 based console in 1995...they were extremely late to the party.
If Nintendo need extremely extra power of Computer M-68000 on Super Nintendo 16 bit hardwares!.....I wish.
Very Late.
They were 1 Console Generation behind.
Am surprisingly pleased to find someone covering A'Can, a console that is mostly forgotten even in its homeland.
I'm Chinese and I love Taiwan. Don't want to see bros become strangers, or even worse, enemies.
I think hardly anyone In Taiwan know about it unfortunately. I havnt found any for sale.
I also don't want China & Taiwan to fight. Should be allies not enemies
The tension between Taiwan and China is 100% caused by the Chinese government insisting that Taiwan is a part of China and that they must be reunified at all costs. This is completely against the will of the Taiwanese people and so cooperation is impossible.
I do agree that Chinese and Taiwanese people should be friends. You share a history like American and British people. But if friendship between Chinese and Taiwanese is conditional of Taiwan giving up its sovereignty, which is far more the sovereignty of the Taiwanese people than China is the sovereignty of the Chinese people.
As you can tell from my name I am a Chinese, so I need to say something about this console. It's extremely obscure even in Taiwan and the main land. There were ads for it on our game magazines back to the days, but they discontinued very soon, only last about 3 or 4 months. As far as I know no one cared or talked about it except nerds like myself... Games on this console were mostly ports from PC, since in early 90s Taiwanese created very decent PC games, some of which even matched the criteria of Japanese games.
So, Weihua Tang, do you have any idea on the specifications of the Super A-Can and how it stacked up against other 16-bit consoles? May I know that information from yourself, please? Thank you.
@@paxhumana2015 Besides the major issues like lacking of softwere and late releasing time or the mighty competitors mentioned in the vedio, I think the definitive cause of its perish was the marketing scale and status. Now China is one of the biggest market in the world, but back then we main land livers knew little about copyright or IP stuffs, piracy was rampant and universal, so no game developer with dignity could earn money in there. For our gamers, legal games were either too pricey or not introduced at the first place, left us no choice but playing pirated games. That in turn caused us to get used to very low game cost, like 1 buck for a disc. Acan uses cartridges that cost much more that discs, let alone these pirate discs. By the way, n64 is (not was) extremely obscure in China, partially because of the same reason. Taiwan, on the other hand was not big enough to accommodate a brand new console. Sadly copyrights
infringement is still a big problem in China eventodyay.
@@weihuatang171 well he was asking about the specifications of the Super A'Can if it's powerful compared to SNES and Genesis?
Speedy dragon is blatantly kid chaos on the amiga, a sonic clone produced by magnetic fields on the amiga to compete with sonic. Kid chaos is actually quite impressive on the amiga with loads of parallax scrolling almost on par with sonic on the medadrive.
Yes I just looked up Kid Chaos and you are right
This channel has tremendous value. Very interesting.
I myself own a Super A'can system, brand new never taken out of the box. Took me years to find it. Anyway, thanks for the great documentary!
How about the sound system? Its sample ou FM Synth based ?
@@amicum The Super A'can I own is mint...never turned on... Sorry, I have no idea, sorry.
Sweet Jesus where did you find that. Virtually no one in Taiwan even knows what it is. I want one
I bought mine in Mainland China, as part of a old new stock....along with other rare oddities (Casio PV-1000, Ique, JVC X'eye, Sega SG-1000 to name a few...). All brand new, mint.
Oh nice, I might have to check out some China. The very odd one I've found in Taiwan were wildly expensive
To made a successful console you need resources, money, time (a lot) and some good launch games, an established name and previous expertise don't hurt also, so it always amuse me that company after company tries lo launch a new console skimping in all categories and then they get all surprised when it fails miserably...
Damn dude, you read my mind. I've been looking up information on this console in the last couple of days and the only reviews I can find are not in English.
There is more information on it than there is on the Mindset graphics computer at least. I discovered that thought Wikipedia and then years later the 8 bit guy made like in video on it that didn't tell you much.
Also check out “Low Score Boy” RUclips channel. He covered A’can before intensively. It has more detail if you are interested.
What did they have in mind? They released a system that did exactly what other systems did better years before and their system was introduced at a time when new generation systems were available. And they imagined that had a chance to work?
This brings back memories I still have a Super A'Can.
Any chance you have Rebel Star?
Every time you post a video like this I say "Wow, yet again something I've never heard of. How does he do it?!?" Thanks Top Hat Gaming Man!
Can you cover the Dendy? It is a bootleg console that had the honour of being one of the most popular consoles in post Soviet countries. I remember it being on the shelf with boxed games as late as 2010 and some few shops still sell it.
How on earth do you keep finding this obscure content?! Its super interesting to see just how totally saturated the market was in the mid-late 90's. Keep em coming man!
I have so so so many more stories to tell!
I wonder if anyone has attempted to emulate the Super A'Can? I'd be surprised if someone did.
MAME, although it's in early development.
Would be cool if someone eventually finds a dev kit so that maybe new games could be made even if it were only for the exercise in seeing what could be done with the system.
Maybe Reverse Engineer it?
Just like EA did to Sega Genesis?
The Street fighter music playing thru the whole video is gold🦅
It's so rare Acan't buy it
Nice.
Acant...I just can't
😹😸
All such tragic stories... Keep em' coming
Really neat Richard. I have no idea where you find this stuff. I guess you really are the Greatest Of All Time!! ;)
It’s Traditional Chinese, not Taiwanese in the game. Also, Taiwanese and Cantonese use the same written Traditional Chinese as used in the in the game - there isn’t a unique character set for Taiwanese, it’s difference is how it’s spoken.
Probably had Taiwan confused with Thailand. Bring back Formosa
It was actually a pretty powerful console for a 16bit machine. They should have ditched the 68000, though. There were already much more powerful processors available.
You doing an amazing job with these obscurities oh, well done indeed, I'd love to see the rest of the games in a brief video... Can't believe I never heard of this system
Taiwan is East Asia, not South-East Asia. And thank you for calling it a country. Please ignore all Chinese nationalists claiming otherwise.
Taiwan is a province of China! Don't you say otherwise, you capitalist pig.
taiwan is NOT a country! they want to be, but they never declare independence. technically they are just a special providence of china. they have their own currency, own flag, etc just like hong kong.
btw, nationalists are in taiwan, don’t you meant communist?
By nationalists I mean people whose personal identities are strongly tied to their citizenship and the interests of their country over the interests of others. I understand that the Chinese Nationalist Party, the KMT, is in Taiwan, but the Communist Party in China is deeply nationalist and encourages a very nationalist population. I intentionally used small 'n' nationalist to identify Beijing's policies as nationalist and not big 'N' Nationalist which would refer to the KMT party in Taiwan. Being communist doesn't make you nationalist, but the CPC is absolutely nationalist. Many Chinese will get very upset if you suggest that Taiwan is not a part of China, that threatens their identity. Most Taiwanese will tell you that Taiwan is not a part of China, and won't get nearly as upset if you claim that it is.
@@MrEvoBoi Taiwan is, in no way, under any definition, a part of the People's Republic of China. Unlike Hong Kong, which is an official SAR of China, which was officially transferred from the UK to the PRC in 1997, Taiwan has never, in any capacity, been PRC territory. The PRC is China. Absolutely and completely independent from the PRC is Taiwan and other islands controlled by the ROC government. The only reason Taiwan hasn't declared independence is because China would attack them if they did. That's literally the only reason.
I would argue that even the ROC has no legitimate claim to Taiwan. Taiwan was taken from Qing China by the Japanese and then forcefully occupied by the KMT after WWII. Because of the Chinese Civil War, neither the KMT nor the Chinese Communists signed the Treaty of San Francisco which determined what would happen to territories, including Taiwan, that were surrendered to the United States by Japan after the war. The US allowed the KMT to govern Taiwan, and they did so quite brutally and completely against the will of the people who were living in Taiwan prior to that point. Japan signed Taiwan away when it signed the Treaty of San Francisco, but since neither the ROC nor the PRC signed the treaty, neither has a legal claim to the island.
Taiwan belongs to the Taiwanese people who have the right to govern themselves. And that's exactly what they are doing.
Thanks man....
Nobody has reported on this original system....
I have it on my hyperspin and always wondered what it was exactly....and where it came from?
Thanks again!
Not many people in Taiwan know about it either
Top Hat Gaming Man, you're *the* man!
There is one trend I see with failed consoles their game library that usually ends up only being a double number 10-99. Many not even getting to 20 games. Other failing short somewhere below 50.
I still have the old game magazine that features this thing. They try to market it in Chinese speaking areas mainly.
1:12 damn girl
Nice video! I definitely enjoy your presentation style
Wow, I just found out about this console a couple of days ago and wanted to know more, I bet this video will help me understand.
Very interesting video on the history and the failure of the Super A'Can. I can say that had Funtech started development on the console earlier and release it at the right time and have the right game library, it might stand a chance.
I also heard they're planning a CD add-on (akin to the Sega CD), but it didn't make it to the store.
Awesome. A new video... and a really informative one at that.
Great vid! I’ll be checking back for more!!!
History now tells us that from the 90s onwards you had to be able to release a gaming product globally or it would fail, even in the early 00s local manufacturers were still attempting this with the same results. They did seem to achieve hardware that did seem to have the potential to be better that both the snes and megadrive but they seemed to make the decision to develop it when work on more advanced hardware was already being announced so they were really fighting a losing battle from day one. Still interesting to see that other countries were trying things to try and enter the market.
Have to say that I really enjoyed this episode
Wow, I have never heard of this, subbed!!
This console is very obscure that I can't even see commercials for it.
I wish I had the money to afford these unknown consoles. I'd love to play the games on them.
Sango Fighter, that's nostalgic!
That console seems spec'd in-between the SNES and the Neo Geo... Could have been interesting 3 years earlier.
8:33 OK, that is CLEARLY a Three Kingdoms game. I wish you'd talked about what this game was!
I think thata the only one on another console. PC I think.
This was released on the PC with the English title "Sango Fighter".
@@KasumiKenshirou Oooohhhhh. That makes sense! IIRC, it's available for free if you look for it.
Pff, Seven Kingdoms > Three Kingdoms!
The six biggest obstacles that prevented the Super A-Can from being a massive success would be its name, the fact that it came out in 1995 instead of like 1986 to 1988, in which that it could have absolutely mauled Sega, Nintendo, NEC, SNK, Atari, Amiga, Commodore, and others with its sales numbers, had it been made at that time instead of 1995, a lack of quality video game publishers and developers that were willing to take the risk in making video games for that system, the willingness to port excellent third party video games to that system, the lack of in-house support, as Nintendo, Sega, and Atari had done at that time, in making their own signature titles for that system, and a lack of peripherals, especially signature peripherals, such as a light gun, computer keyboard, multiplayer devices, LAN devices, a mouse mouse pad, stylus, an electronic musical type keyboard, and developer kits much like the Net Yarouze for the PS1/PSX, and a similar system for the PS2. Still, I imagine an alternate universe where Nintendo, Sega, and others became also-rans, third party developers and publishers, or just simply never entered into the video game or arcade game markets, and that the Intellivision and the Super A-Can were the two big dogs in the pack. I am curious about the specifications of the Super A-Can, though. Were it powerful enough, as well as marketed right, it could one-up all of these modern day, limited, derivative, and diminutive miniature video game consoles and still be a decent video game console to build a library of video games on in the modern era. Now all that is needed is to reverse engineer the Super A-Can, to do the other things that I had mentioned, and you would have a massively popular retro video game console.
Nikola Opric: I honestly agree with you, but the problem is, where to find the ordinary people who were apparently video game nerds who actually reverse-engineered the Super A'Can? I imagine there are only several in existence.
1:12 This ad makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
what game is on the lower right at the 5:12 mark? it looks sooo much like Shining Force and I'm interested to find more images of it.
Nikola Opric: I came from a video which discusses Super A'Can which is made by a Taiwanese RUclipsr named "Low Score Boy". Anyway, i think the ending of the Super A'Can Story clearly could have been better, they really could have just imported the unsold units to countries that actually could have needed more of than Taiwan did, (Eastern Europe/The Balkans, Ukraine and Russia, and yes, Mainland China and Hong Kong) but instead, as it was said in the video above, these unsold units were dissembled and the parts from these were sold to various companies around the world, so i wouldn't be surprised if some of the parts from these unsold units are actually found in Serbia. (The country i was actually born and live in)
Have you done a video on the gamestick? Never heard much about when it was still active.
Love the Terranigma music in the background :)
I do wonder what the thing could do when pushed like the other systems were.
Journey to the Laugh looks like a clone of a Journey to the West kind of game, I am sure that Monkey is called Goku and that Gorilla is his ultimate super form where he can just blast all of the enemies in the screen.
unique controller design
More live time reactions would make these videos more interesting... Instead just an audio based video... Love your channel. Been subbed for years!!!!!
Anything But Tangerines!
Damn their games are actually much better than the mainstream consoles at the time and yes much much better than LJN or Action 52 or Cheetahmen 2
Bloody good video
Great video and obscure system! I was wondering... What's the game of the soundtrack played around 9:40? I remember this tune, but cannot recall the game.
I'm on the same boat. It sounds like a Turbo Grafx/PC Engine CD arranged track, so that may help? Or by Tommy Tallarico. It's in the back of my head and it's driving me crazy!
I thought I had found it. Sounds very similar to Gate of Thunder, stage 2. But it's not.
FOUND IT! Earthworm Jim 2 Special Edition (Sega CD) "Anything but Tangerines". :-D
DarthEquus Thanks! I recognized it from Electric Playground, which makes sense, as Tommy Tallarico used to be a part of that show, but I'd forgotten that song was from EWJ2. I'd been meaning to look it up for a while now.
Only 12,000 a-can units were sold.
There can't many more obscure machines left to cover, surely?
You'd be surprised, variations and regional stuff will be a lot more videos worth.
@@LyingSecret hope so!
Man, did it really say "Fight Earwax?" Yes it did!
How they didn't get sued is a miracle
I guess a homebrew game that pushes this system to it's limits has yet to be made. This console looks like the taiwanese equivalent to the Atari Jaguar.
That game at around 9:20, when he spins in midair he literally turns into a giant sprite of sonic, LOOK AT IT :D
Cheers Mate keep up the fantastic job.
Good Stuff!
So basically, the very definition of "too little, too late."
Wooooaaaah. When he says “your avg consumer” at like 3:20 the commercial cut in with “hey it’s your average consumer here-“ 😦🤯😱 what the hell is happening?!!
Did anybody else get that one?? With the black dude on his computer talkin about whatever? These google ads have been really creeping me out lately.
Dose anybody know to name of BGM that starts playing at 4:14?
@8:23 Also play as Sherlock Holmes, Napoleon Bonaparte, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe or Jessica Alba. Re: Why the Fuhrer in Africa? Well he had a significant involvement in East Africa, though I doubt the game draws upon that with any historical accuracy, lol.
Where have I seen that Sonic Baseball Bat game thing? Hmm... I can't tell... Like, I think it got ported to a future system or two.
Japan, taiwan , and korea are east Asia not southeast Asia.
"DontWang Technology"? Ooh my, what an.. unfortunate name
I heard "DungWang Technologies" which is arguably even worse.
Eh, it could have been "Duwang Technologies"
@@steveluvscows2490
What a beautiful Duwang!
chew
What’s the song @ 4:40
Wow. Peach got leg! 1:11
How was Krillin so tall in that dance number XD
I would like to hear more about the sharp xs6800
That has a great version of star wars on it.
Very interesting video indeed. This is why I am a subscriber of this channel. lt looks like a very cool machine, very aesthetically pleasing. Better than pur US purple Snes's...;)
I love the British voice !
That fighting game reminds me a pic fighting game I played in the early mid 90s called Sango fighter
Edit....just looked that is Sango fighter on the super A can
Looks like a World Heroes (NeoGeo game) clone to me. One of the characters looks alot like Rasputin.
Skip to 2:50
Apple pippin
Apple Pippin will be the sequel to the Playdia episode when I get round to both of them.
Have you already done the Amstrad GX4000 yet?
any system with SANGO FIGHTERS on it, is a good system in my book :)
Basing this system on the 68000 was a dumb move. Really they needed to have more processing power than their existing rivals if they were ever to compete with their existing competitors, let alone the consoles those competitors might have in the works. Using the same CPU as one of your competitors existing is not a good strategy to do this. This seems to be a story of far too little far too late. It could have done well if released closer to the Snes or Megadrive but there was no way it could ever compete against the Playstation and Saturn.
8:26 I hate to be that guy, but it's in Chinese, Taiwanese is a "dialect" that's mainly spoken
Did they ever sell the gameboy in Taiwan?
Super a can birthday 🎉 7:12
never heard of this console until now, thanks mate! 👍
We'll make a 16 Bit console better than Sega and Nintendo. In 1995.
Anyone ever hear about Mario Time Machine?
first game is KID Chaos clone :)
Give us the link to the pink hotty in the thumbnail
Good video but I feel like I should add that Taiwan and Japan are in East Asia. Not South East asia and Taiwan speaks/writes Chinese mandarin not Taiwanese. Taiwan's more pc based then console. Like acer, foxconn & Asus 🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼 although Japanese nintendo consoles were pretty big and ps4/vita still are very popular. Most tech shopping centres shops stock mostly those 2 now
It failed because A'Can't.