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Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo (www.videogameschronicle.com)

submitted 4 months ago by simple@lemm.ee to c/games@lemmy.world

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[-] CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 12 points 4 months ago

The context is Kirby Air Ride, a racing spinoff. Not that it changes much, but it is fully 3D and a genre that can take advantage of surround sound.

[-] the_artic_one@programming.dev 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

~~That came out on GameCube back when we were all still using composite cables that didn't support surround anyway.~~

Edit: Apparently I was misinformed, still KAR was such a casual arcadey game that I'm sure it got more benefit out of quick startup than it would have from surround support.

[-] RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

This is not true at all and demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of how surround sound worked.

Nintendo 64 games like Donkey Kong 64 and Conker's Bad Fur Day supported surround sound. Even Star Fox on the SNES supported surround sound. All through composite cables.

It works by encoding multiple channels into two channels, so it can then decode those channels to send the proper signal to the proper speaker. For Dolby specifically, you need a Pro Logic compatible receiver, which could decode that signal. If you don't have a Pro Logic compatible receiver then you will only hear stereo output.