3D Alien Busters version of Doom version of Doom

Doom is known in Japan as ドゥーム (katakana literally transliterated as Duumu or Doumu, and understood as『DOOM』). Official ports of Doom were released in Japan under license from id Software by publisher Imagineer Co., Ltd. and distributor SoftBank. This included versions of the PC Doom, Doom II, and Doom95, as well as multiple console versions in their Japanese releases.

Ports of Doom to the NEC PC-98 architecture were programmed by Infinity Co., Ltd. Though based on Intel processors like the IBM PC, the NEC PC-98 series featured a custom bus and different video hardware which made it binary incompatible with most PC software. Versions of the Doom games for this architecture were released on 5.25" and 3.5" floppy disk as well as on CD-ROM.

Minimum system requirements [ edit ]

PC-9801/Fellow, PC-9821/Mate/Multi, or Epson PC-386/486 clone system

i386SX processor or later

MS-DOS 3.3 or later

Supported sound devices: Sound Blaster 16, PC-9801-86 (OPNA), or PC speaker

Supported music devices: Sound Blaster 16 (OPL3 or MIDI daughterboard), PC-9801-26K (OPN), PC-9801-86 (OPNA), Roland MPU-PC98 (MIDI), or MIDI over RS-232

Most VGA-or-higher equivalent PC-98 graphics adapters are supported

PC-98 release gallery [ edit ]

Doom on 5.25" floppy discs

Doom on 3.5" floppy discs

Doom on CD-ROM

Doom II on 3.5" floppy discs

Doom II on CD-ROM

Floppy disks 1 and 6 for 3D Alien Busters.

Equivalent releases of all games were made for the standard IBM PC architecture, with minor tweaks for the DOS/V version of IBM PC DOS with full Japanese language support. Unlike the PC-98, ordinary PC software could execute under DOS/V on standard hardware without modification.

3D Alien Busters [ edit ]

At least one release by Imagineer in their DOS/V Series 6 was uniquely entitled DOOM 3D Alien Busters (ドゥーム), or 3D Alien Busters DOOM, depending on the context.

DOS/V release gallery [ edit ]

Doom II on 3.5" floppy discs

Doom II on CD-ROM

Windows 95 [ edit ]

Windows 95 dual-CD release

A double-disc release of Doom II along with Doom95 was also coordinated by Imagineer, containing versions for both the PC-98 and standard PC on each disc. This release touts compatibility with the Imagineer PCPad controller, and like some American releases, it includes an offer for free time on the DWANGO network, which had recently expanded its franchise territory into Japan.

Doom 3 [ edit ]

The very first world premiere public unveiling of Doom 3 was at Apple's Macworld Conference & Expo in Tokyo, Japan during the unveiling of Nvidia's GeForce 3 GPU, with Apple CEO Steve Jobs introducing id Software CTO John Carmack on stage, who showed off a few new screenshots of the id Tech 4 game engine, debuting some from Doom 3[1] [2] which was intended to release for Apple Macintosh in addition to Windows PC. According to Carmack[3], this presentation was to the trepidation of some Apple reps who believed the images were inappropriate for the computer conference as "Steve doesn't like blood.", but when deferred to Jobs he gave Doom's presentation the green light to proceed as Carmack saw fit. Doom 3 was published in Japan by CyberFront[4].

Console games [ edit ]

The following console versions of Doom series games were given Japanese releases, some with specific localizations:

Local community [ edit ]

There is a number of Japanese members in the Doom community, which make up a thriving local community. Several popular names include Tatsurd-cacocaco and Nanka Kurashiki. In 2016, they released the Japanese Community Project megawad, which was named as a winner of one of the 23rd Annual Cacowards.

DOOM at the Japanese-language Wikipedia.