Sound and Games
Games haven’t ignored these developments. The NES had only monaural sound, the SNES and Megadrive had stereo. All consoles since then have been equipped with stereo through their A/V cables.
However, they have had more than just stereo. Argonaut Software released an iffy strategy/puzzle game for the Super Nintendo back in November 1992, the first console game ever to feature Dolby Surround technology. A brief look at the following screenshot makes you wonder why they bothered:
Regardless, it became the fashionable thing to do, and a number of titles were released using Dolby Surround, including Jurassic Park.
The next generation of consoles was released, and things moved on a little. The Nintendo 64 title Star Wars: Rogue Squadron featured Pro Logic, and the world was good.
Now, to present day. There are (last time I checked) three consoles on the market, each with advanced sound support. At the bottom end of the scale, the Nintendo GameCube features support only for two channels, but Pro Logic II forms part of the official development kit. Pro logic II, whilst miles better than the original Surround, pales in comparison to real systems such as Dolby Digital or DTS, making the GameCube the weakest of the bunch.
The Playstation 2 features an optical connection, and a large amount of its cut-scenes are delivered in Dolby Digital via this optical connection. In-game though, the majority of games are pure Stereo, as the PS2 does not have the hardware to write Dolby Digital in an in-game situation. It is, however, capable of Pro Logic I and II via a simple stereo connection.
The Xbox is unique in that it features a full Dolby Digital encoder. Simply go into the console’s options, tell it the Dolby is there, and it’ll output 5.1 goodness through an optical connection. Without a doubt, it’s the most hard-core of consoles when it comes to sound. The same Dolby Encoder has been used on nVidia nForce2-based motherboards.
