What are the real-life origins of CPU and CPU Candidates?

Question

In Hyperdimension Neptunia, Neptunia is based on Sega Neptune. The name of her country, Planeptune is obviously a reference to Sega Neptune. My question is, what console the other CPU and CPU Candidates (Nepgear, Noire, Uni, and Vert) are based on?

Noire means black and her country is Lastation which is based on Sony Playstation. But, PS2, PS3, and PS4 all has black color. PSX/PSOne is excluded since it's gray. Which Playstation console is she based on?

The same can be said about Vert, which means green. There are several variations of XBox. Which one is she based on?

And what about Nepgear and Uni?

EDIT: Considering that Blanc's sister are Rom and Ram, which is obviously a reference to ROM (Read-Only Memory) and RAM (Random Access Memory), it might be possible that Nepgear and Uni refers to a certain peripheral/component/parts of the console. But still, what part?

Answer 1

Nepgear is based on the Sega Game Gear, its reference being that Neptune wears two hairclips while Nepgear only has one, possibly representing the maximum number of D-pads supported by the respective consoles the two are based on. (The Sega Neptune is equipped with two controller ports, while the Sega Game Gear requires a link cable to play with more than one player.)

Noire does represent the PlayStation as "Noire" means "Black" in French, the default color of PS2, PS3, PSP and PSVita. Her HDD form in Neptunia Victory is based on the original PlayStation, her human forms seems to be based on PlayStation 2, and the yellow diamond on her outfit being a variation of the Sony Computer Entertainment logo (seen upon booting up PlayStations). In Neptunia Victory, all of her Processor Units are based on PS consoles: Her default (Stone Gray) is based on the original PlayStation, Night Blue is based on the PlayStation 2, DX Silver is based on the PlayStation 3 prototype, Piano Black is based on the PlayStation 3 and Orbital-S is based on the PlayStation 4.

Uni is based on the PlayStation Portable, probably with her name derived from the PSP's optimal disc, the Universal Media Disc.

Vert and Leanbox references the Xbox and Xbox 360, but there is no concrete hint to which they are. Although, in the first game, Vert was said to have a problem with getting too hot; this may reference the 360's tendency to overheat. The Green Heart's outfit is revealing, preferably to easier vent heat.

Ram and Rom are both based on the Nintendo DS. As they are twins, they could resemble the DS' dual screen. The rectangles on their hats in their default outfit seems to represent the screen icons from the DS logo.

Answer 2

Each game in the Hyperdimension Neptunia series is different. They have different stories and different origins. As an example, in Re;Birth 1, the remake of the first game, the goddesses were fighting against each other in the start of the story. In Re;Birth 2, they were already friends in the beginning and Arfoire is technically dead.

With that in mind, when the first game was conceived, the latest consoles are the PS3, the Wii, and the Xbox 360. Noire, Blanc, and Vert's CPU forms represents these consoles respectively. The color scheme for Noire and the PS3 is black. For Blanc, it's white and blue just like the Wii. For Vert, it's green and white, just like the Xbox 360.

By the time the second game (Hyperdimension Neptunia MK2) comes out, the PSP and the Nintendo DS are already released. Ram and Rom represents the dual screen that the DS has and Uni represents the PSP. You can see how the front of Uni's dress matches the UMD holder of the PSP. Her color is also black, which matches the piano black color scheme of the PSP.

Although the goddesses represents the entire console line, their style changes with each generation as each game are different. With Victory 2, because the new Xbox One is the latest Xbox console, Vert's color theme changes to include black. Noire's color theme also includes blue due to the bluish color that the PS4 have.

Answer 3

As explained by other answers above the CPU/CPU Candidates and Nations of the Hyperdimension Neptunium Games (with 3 CPUs missing) are

• Planetune = Sega

  • Neptune = Fictional Sega Home Console
  • Nepgear = Fictional Sega Portable Console
  • Plutia = Released Sega Consoles

• Lastation = Sony

  • Noire = Playstation 3 (the system the original game was release on)
  • Uni = PSP

• Lowee = Nintendo

  • Blanc = Wii
  • Ram and Rom = the DS and DSi¹

• Leanbox = Microsoft

  • Vert = X-Box 360 (as the 360 is from the same generation as the PS3. the X-Box is from the same generation as the PS2)

• Eden = Hudson Soft²

  • Peashy = TurboGraphx 16

• Tari = Atari

  • Rei = Atari Consoles

Soruce: CPU - List of CPUs

Noire's, Vert's and Blanc's console representations in the Ultradimension of Hyperdimension Neptunia V are a bit looser as the Ultradimension represents 1989 and to my knowledge out of the 3 only Nintendo had a console back then for Blanc to fall back to while Noire and Vert do not (Vert questionably could be PC)

the terms used in the games are taken from now Information Technology/Games terms however are altered for the series

• Gamindustri = Game Industry, the constant battle for Shares is an indication of this as well as the value of a company on the stock market is the value of the shares. so in Gamindustri the more Shares one nation has the more powerful said nation is much

• CPU (Console Patron Unit) - based off the term Central Processing Unit found in all the consoles

• HDD (Hard Drive Divinity) - based off the term Hard Drive Disk. in one form or another all the consoles a CPU is based from had a form of hard drive. (the DSi allows the inserting of SD Cards)

• DOS (Deity of Sin)

  • one definition can be that it is based off the term Disk Operating System, the background system used on computers (mainly Windows). this has been the definition i thought it was as the final boss of the true route is called DOS.Arfoire and since this boss is the underlying foundation of ASIC (this is the true Arfoire that had to be defeated not the previous one found in the normal route who is named CFW.Arforie)

  • Sakurai Tomoko however has suggested that DOS could be based off the term Denial-of-service attack which is used by criminals and fits with ASIC's nature³

• CFW (Criminals of the Free World) - while there are many definition of CFW i believe in the context of Neptunia it's a reference to be Custom Firmware, normally used when hacking consoles for pirated content

• Console Wars - the term used in real life to describe the constant battle between companies when they release a console to attract buyers to it. done so by inciting developers to develop games for the console, other peripherals such as motion senoring and system changes to include new features such as allowing Indie developers to release games or backwards compatibility

• Arfoire - as per how it is pronounced, the R4 is a pirate hardware/software used on the DS for running DS Roms

which may also be why CFW.Trick and Linda converted Rom to their side rather than Ram during the Lowee chapters of Mk. II

One should note however that as indicated in the Trivia Section of the CPU Wikia Page the term CPU was not used in the Japanese Version of the game much like that of Arfoire so the definitions i have provided above related to the English release of the games

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^{1: both the DS and DSi were released in japan before the Japanese Release of Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk II. the games released for both DS consoles are labeled as DS and work on both systems (as opposed to 3DS or NN3DS games) however the DSi contained a redeveloped operating system and the reintroduction of Region Locking (not present in the original DS) making different operationally wise much like how Ram and Rom are different personality wise}

^{2: as stated on the Wikia's Trivia for Eden there is a reference to Hudson Soft logo which also fits Peashy's color scheme however while Hudson Soft never released any consoles they did make the Hudson Soft HuC6280 CPU for the TurboGraphx 16}

^{3: as you can see on Wikipedia the Acronym is DoS (with a lowercase o) while Disk Operating System it's DOS (with a Capital O) and the of the in the term Criminal of the Free World is omitted in the acronym CFW as such i would more side with DOS rather than DoS however i have no proper citation for which term was used in the English translation}

Answer 4

Neptune is based on the Neptune in name only, much as Nepgear is not directly based on the Game Gear.

The Neptune and Nepgear they are named after are fictional seventh gen devices. They can be seen in the media related to the games and occasionally in the games themselves.

Neptune: http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/neptunia/images/6/6a/22dzw.png/revision/latest?cb=20141028005428

Nepgear(?)/N-Gear (named after Nokia N-Gauge? It can be used as a phone so...): http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/neptunia/images/b/b4/N-Gear.png/revision/latest?cb=20130906010712

Because she's not based on an existing line of consoles, ingame lore states that Neptune's CPU is upgradeable. I'm not sure if this is the case with Nepgear though...