Hudson's Summer Caravan / Carnival - history

[stevek666]

UPDATED chronologies:

Hudson Caravan:
1985 -- Star Force (Famicom)
1986 -- Star Soldier (Famicom)
1987 -- Hector '87 (Famicom)
1988 -- Power League (PCE)
1989 -- GunHed (PCE)
1990 -- Super Star Soldier (PCE)
1991 -- Final Soldier (PCE)
1992 -- Soldier Blade (PCE)

Hudson Super Caravan:
1993 -- Hi-TEN Bomberman (HiVision). First HDTV video game, 10-player. The HiVision hardware running Hi-TEN is still a mystery. Some suggest it was a PCE console connected to an IBM PC (in order to generate an HDTV signal). Others suggest it was an early prototype of PC-FX hardware. Regardless, Hi-TEN was never released)

1994 -- Hi-TEN Chara Bom (HiVision).
* 1994 -- ??? -- Super Bomberman 2 (Super Famicom) -- There are many references to a Super Bomberman 2 - Caravan Edition, but this might have been a promotional item.

1995 -- Tengai Makyō Zero (Super Famicom).
1996 -- Saturn Bomberman (Saturn).

1997 -- Super Bomber Man: Fighting Phoenix (Gameboy).
* 1997 -- Super Bomberman 5 (Super Famicom) - ??? - NOTE: This page refers to SB 5 as a Caravan game... but there's another game on the soundtack as well, so perhaps there were two titles featured in 1997?

Naxat's Summer Carnival (3 tournaments total):
1991 -- Spriggan (PCE)
1992 -- Summer Carnival '92: Alzadick (PCE) and Recca (Famicom)
1993 -- Summer Carnival '93: Nexzr Special (PCE)

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I have found generic information on Hudson's Summer Caravans, but does anyone have detailed accounts of what the Caravans were like?

For example: Who was eligible to compete? What were the prizes? How was it advertised? What demographics were most likely to participate in the contest? Why did Hudson stop holding these contests? Did other companies hold their own contests, following Hudson's format? etc. etc.

Hudson is selling "Caravan" t-shirts. Is the design inspired by older t-shirts? I guess "16 shots per second" was a defining point in the history of shooters? Was "16 shot" part of Hudson's old marketing back in the 80's?

Thanks in advance

[Kaminari]

The Zenkoku Caravan and the Summer Carnival were two different events: the former was patronized by Hudson, the latter by Naxat. Unfortunately I don't have much detail on their organization.

The Naxat contests lasted for three years only and were based around their shooting games: Spriggan (1991), Alzadick, Recca (1992), Nexzr Special (1993).

There were 13 Caravan tournaments from 1985 to 1997. Each tournament took place in major cities and was split between the North Caravan (from Hokkaidō to Tōkyō) and South Caravan (from Kagoshima to Ōsaka). The national finale opposed the two winners of each regional contest. For the record, Takahashi-meijin became famous thanks to the Caravan tournaments. The guy was alledgedly capable of hitting a button 16 times per second with his thumb :)

Your list is pretty much exhaustive up until the 8th Caravan in 1992. From 1993 to 1997, the tournament was renamed Super Caravan and mainly involved various versions of Bomber Man on the SFC, Saturn and HiVision systems (Bomber Man '93 and '94 Special Versions were not officially used as Caravan stages, they were more like promotional items).

Which reminds me... People often confuse Special Versions and taikenban samples. They have nothing in common. The Special Versions were usually offered by Hudson as gifts during the Caravan tournaments. The taikenban (preview) samples were simply demo discs of forthcoming games from various publishers, and were either released in magazines or demonstrated in some selected street shops (the latter ones being the hardest to find). To my knowledge, Motteke Tamago is the only example of a taikenban which was released but the final game was not.

[stevek666]

The Zenkoku Caravan and the Summer Carnival were two different events: the former was patronized by Hudson, the latter by Naxat. Unfortunately I don't have much detail on their organization.

Yes, I should have made that distinction clearer . I combined them to create one chronology (I'm making a "master" timeline of events), but it makes things rather confusing. I've never seen Hudson't contest referred to as the "Zenkoku" Caravan... what is the official name of Hudson's contest? Hahahahahaa. It's funny that I don't even know the name of it!

The Naxat contests lasted for three years only and were based around their shooting games: Spriggan (1991), Alzadick, Recca (1992), Nexzr Special (1993).

AHHHHHHHH, Spriggan was used the first year! Excellent! Thank you.

There were 13 Caravan tournaments from 1985 to 1997. Each tournament took place in major cities and was split between the North Caravan (from Hokkaidō to Tōkyō) and South Caravan (from Kagoshima to Ōsaka). The national finale opposed the two winners of each regional contest. For the record, Takahashi-meijin became famous thanks to the Caravan tournaments. The guy was alledgedly capable of hitting a button 16 times per second with his thumb

!!!! I was wondering who Takahashi-meijin was! Thank you! And to think that I thought "16 shots per second" was merely a marketing term! I think the North American folks really need a mini-biography about this fellow -- I didn't know about his connection to "Adventure Island" until recently.

So, Hudson held 13 Caravan tournaments in total, the last one was in 1997. Wow. That's pretty impressive. This could possibly have been the longest-running national video game competition, ever.

Your list is pretty much exhaustive up until the 8th Caravan in 1992. From 1993 to 1997, the tournament was renamed Super Caravan and mainly involved various versions of Bomber Man on the SFC, Saturn and HiVision systems (Bomber Man '93 and '94 Special Versions were not officially used as Caravan stages, they were more like promotional items).

OK, "Super Caravan" ushers in a new era of non-shooting games, it seems. I guess the shooter genre was less popular at this point (in terms of mainstream appeal). I've updated the lists... is it possible that Super Bomberman on SF occupy the last 4 spots on the roster? Kind of boring, but it seems that's what happened.

Which reminds me... People often confuse Special Versions and taikenban samples. They have nothing in common. The Special Versions were usually offered by Hudson as gifts during the Caravan tournaments. The taikenban (preview) samples were simply demo discs of forthcoming games from various publishers, and were either released in magazines or demonstrated in some selected street shops (the latter ones being the hardest to find). To my knowledge, Motteke Tamago is the only example of a taikenban which was released but the final game was not.

Yeah, when I initially made the list, I was grasping at straws for 1993 onwards . Basically, I figured that any PCE game that Hudson was heavily promoting would be a good candidate for the Caravan, even if a "Special Version" was never officially released. It never occurred to me to look for titles on the (then) newer consoles... PC-FX and Super Famicom!

[Kaminari]

I've never seen Hudson't contest referred to as the "Zenkoku" Caravan... what is the official name of Hudson's contest?

Zenkoku Caravan ;)

Zenkoku means "national" or "nation-wide". The contest was also simply called Hudson Caravan.

[stevek666]

I've never seen Hudson't contest referred to as the "Zenkoku" Caravan... what is the official name of Hudson's contest?

Zenkoku Caravan

Zenkoku means "national" or "nation-wide". The contest was also simply called Hudson Caravan.

Ahhhhh. My ignorance is astounding

[Kaminari]

Don't be so modest, Satai Steve. As my master Lao Tzu used to say:

The sage wanders without knowing,
Looks without seeing,
Accomplishes without acting.

Following those words of wisdom, I shall now hit the hay

[stevek666]

Ha!

Looks like a lot of info is here:
http://nekofan.free.fr/specialversionstest.htm

However, the author states that Hi-TEN Bomberman (Caravan 93 / 94) was running on a prototype (Tetsujin / Iron Man) version of PC-FX?

Also, at the very bottom of the page is a funny joke screenshot (for Yôkai Dôchûki Gold). So who is that dude on the title screen? An accomplished historian, no doubt

[Kaminari]

I don't think the HiVision was based on the PC Engine nor the PC-FX (Tetsujin was the name of the FX-32 prototype, which was not really the FX we ended up with). My good pal AdorU knows more about HiTen Bomber Man, I'll ask him again about the details.

Yōkai Gold, haha! The dude on the screenshot is a famous French singer, Jean-Jacques Goldman

[stevek666]

Great. I was putting a lot of weight on Aaron's account (at pcenginefx.com), but now it seems that his account simplified / confused the hardware running Hi-TEN. Of course, Nekofan's page makes things rather confusing, suggesting that 1993 Hi-TEN hardware was a PCE console + IBM PC (for generating HDTV signal), but in 1994 it might have been Tetsujin.

AHHHHHHHHHHH. We may never know.

I'll be happy if I can just find out what games were used each year of the Caravan, even if the hardware running them is not known precisely.

[lkermel]

Waooo Kaminari ...

Thanks for the info about the Caravan tournaments .... I tried to put some stuff together for my site few years ago but I didn't know about the north/south thingy. I didn't know about the Super Caravan title either. Great stuff !!!!

I have some info on my site too, but I do not think it adds anything to Kaminari's perfect piece of Hudson's history

TEST Super Star Soldier and Caravan Competition Info

I remember also downloading a very interesting video on Aramis' site....Kaminari, do you remember the URL ?...

[Kaminari]

According to the Hudson fan club Paint It Yellow, those were the games used during the Super Caravan contests:

1993 HiTen Bomber Man (HiVision)
1994 HiTen Chara Bom (HiVision)
1995 Tengai Makyō Zero (SFC) --> huh? what the... :p
1996 Saturn Bomber Man (Saturn)
1997 Super Bomber Man: Fighting Phoenix (GameBoy)

Laurent> Aramis' website is PC Engine Teikoku. The site was down a couple months ago, I'm not sure he put back online everything he had in store.

[lkermel]

Laurent> Aramis' website is PC Engine Teikoku. The site was down a couple months ago, I'm not sure he put back online everything he had in store.

This is a shame, he had a great japanese video showing the tournaments... it was a pretty big file, around 300 Megs, but totally worth it.

[stevek666]

ooops.