>It was also amazing to me that no home computer manufacturer ever had a plan for a serious gaming home computer system that matched (or came close to) the arcades in visual quality.
Actually the X86000 from Sharp was pretty much this. It had perfect ports of arcade games and was also used as the development system by Capcom among other arcade companies.
Here is a funny story: I live in Athens, Greece. In 1987 (or it was later?), I read on the ACE magazine about the Sharp X68000...with magazine at hand, I went down to the local Sharp dealer to see if they will import the machine...they didn't know anything about it! when I showed them the magazine, they didn't believe me and they refused to pick up the phone and phone Japan!!!
The Sharp X68000 was a beast of machine, but it didn't have sprite scaling.
Actually the X86000 from Sharp was pretty much this. It had perfect ports of arcade games and was also used as the development system by Capcom among other arcade companies.