02453: excitebk, excitbkj: Vs. Excitebike listed as a 2 player game but it's really a 1 player game

ID	Category [?]	Severity [?]	Reproducibility	Date Submitted	Last Update
02453	DIP/Input	Minor	N/A	Sep 28, 2008, 06:04	Oct 2, 2008, 12:00

Tester	TheShanMan	View Status	Public	Platform	MAME (Official Binary)
Assigned To		Resolution	No change required	OS
Status [?]	Closed			Driver	nintendo/vsnes.cpp
Version	0.127u5	Fixed in Version		Build
		Fixed in Git Commit		Github Pull Request #

Summary	02453: excitebk, excitbkj: Vs. Excitebike listed as a 2 player game but it's really a 1 player game
Description	MAME lists this game as a 2 player alternating game, but as best as I can tell only 1 player can play it. Yes, it has 2 sets of controls (standard ctrls for Vs. games), but both sets of controls work for player 1. In other words, both joysticks and both sets of buttons are player 1 controls - you can use either set. Would be nice for this to be corrected for accuracy in general and for other apps like CPWizard in particular.
Steps To Reproduce
Additional Information
Github Commit

Flags
Regression Version
Affected Sets / Systems	excitebk, excitbkj

Attached Files

No.02631 Tafoid Administrator Sep 28, 2008, 14:22	MAME, in it's -listxml output does not state anything about number of players. It makes no assumptions and simply states: <input players="2" buttons="2" coins="2" service="yes"> <control type="joy8way"/> In most instances, 2 controllers can automatically be assumed to be a 2-player game (dual or alternating). In the case of VS. games - the emulation and what's being emulated decides whether or not a game is co-op, alternating or 1 player only. There are quite few games which are single player on the system (Castlevania, Gumshow, Mach Rider, Platoon, Star Luster, Super Xevious, The Goonies) to name a few.. The problem lies outside of MAME in the utilities and lists that assumes that 2 joysticks = 2 player games. I don't think it's MAME's obligation to do this. If anything, your file which you need to reference for your CPViewer "CONTROLS.INI" or CPWizard itself needs to be corrected for these cases and not MAME. I'll leave this open for more input, but again, I doubt this is MAME's problem.
No.02636 TheShanMan Tester Sep 28, 2008, 21:14	You say it does not state anything about number of players, but your quote says 'players="2"'. You're right that it doesn't have any indication of alternating or simultaneous (my mistake), but it looks like mame should be corrected to say players="1", because Excitebike is a 1 player game.
No.02638 Tafoid Administrator Sep 29, 2008, 02:14	Developers, please interject with any information you can provide (agreeing or no) with my assessment of this situation. I've set as Feedback.
No.02651 MikeDX Tester Oct 1, 2008, 10:31	Can anybody provide another example where the xml outputs players="2" but the game is for only one player? If so, surely this serves as a precedent? Answers on a postcard...
No.02657 Haze Senior Tester Oct 2, 2008, 09:31	for 'systems' it's fairly common to have a common set of inputs, rather than game specific ones, for example, if there was a 1 player game on neogeo, it would still be mapped with full inputs. I'm not really sure if this applies to vsnes tho, I don't know much about the system, but I think they were standalone pcbs, not swappable carts / sub-boards?
No.02659 Fujix Administrator Oct 2, 2008, 12:00	I agree with Haze. It is similar to TaitoF3 games have 4-player inputs, isn't it? I think this is the current way of MAME. Closing.