The fail of NES hardware/gaming video from UK outlook

[Dashopepper]

I like the alternate reality some people live in where they think Atari ST and Amiga mean something to people nowadays. Seriously the significance of the SMS, Atari 5200 7800 and every home computer that wasn't in your school cannot be UNDERSTATED enough because they are nonexistent in the American conscience. No one cares what was better when an entire country only remembers one thing. It's great that everyone remembers these mind blowing games that no one cares about and have no significance.

 

Just having fun btw, this thread is blatant trolling right?

[mbd30]

"I like the alternate reality some people live in where they think Atari ST and Amiga mean something to people nowadays. Seriously the significance of the SMS, Atari 5200 7800 and every home computer that wasn't in your school cannot be UNDERSTATED enough because they are nonexistent in the American conscience. No one cares what was better when an entire country only remembers one thing. It's great that everyone remembers these mind blowing games that no one cares about and have no significance.

Just having fun btw, this thread is blatant trolling right?"

 

The OP has some sort of grudge against Nintendo, the NES and Japanese gaming so he frequently makes these passive aggressive swipes at the NES.

Edited April 14, 2017 by mbd30

[Tanooki]

So basically you're dealing with an obstinate manchild type behavior pattern that repeatedly seeks to get spoon fed here comes the airplane style attention for blatant trolling due to some imaginary perceived grudge? Basically there's no point to ever answer to a thread as there will never be a winner let alone agreement.

[enoofu]

-----------------------

Number of TV's in the UK

1986

18,704,732

Roughly 1 TV per 3 people in the UK

Also costed per year in 1988 around 62 pounds are taxed per TV set per year £ 62.50

---------------

UK is in recession far longer then US and Japan in the 1980's

---------------

Edited April 15, 2017 by enoofu

[high voltage]

 

 

The OP has some sort of grudge against Nintendo, the NES and Japanese gaming so he frequently makes these passive aggressive swipes at the NES.

Ahem, NO, please pay attention, Atari VCS had GREAT Nintendo and Japanese games.

Edited April 15, 2017 by high voltage

[high voltage]

Basically there's no point to ever answer to a thread as there will never be a winner let alone agreement

Kept it going though

Edited April 15, 2017 by high voltage

[Tanooki]

Yup pretty much 7 pages deep so far.

[CatPix]

The OP has some sort of grudge against Nintendo, the NES and Japanese gaming so he frequently makes these passive aggressive swipes at the NES.

Note that even if the OP is raging against Nintendo, it doesn't make the video and the point less valid : that the NES wasn't as successful and influencial IN EUROPE as most people today think it is.

 

I'm looking for figures right now about the number of kids in the US and France/UK at the time, but you can already do some rough calculations with basic figures :

 

Nintendo claim to have sold 34 millions of system in the US, 20 in Japan, 8 in Europe.

 

Figures tell us that the US population was 263 millions in 1994, 125 in Japan. "Europe" is a super vague notion here.

Say, the UK population was 58 millions, the French 59.

The NES sold about 1 million in the UK, and about 3 millions in France (I don't have the exact figures, but Nintendo state they sold half a million NES in France between 1987 and 1991, then a million and a half in 1992. So the sales probably kept going in 1993.).

 

So in the US there was one NEs for 7.7 inhabitants,

In Japan, one Famicom for 6.2 inhabitants

In the UK, well, easy, there was one NES for 59 inhabitants.

In France, there was a NES for 19 inhabitants.

 

Well, One could find the figures about how much of that population was under 18 at the time (because let's face it, the NES was bought by parents for the kids) and how much kids there was by family.

But even without those figures, you can clearly see that the NES was much more present in the US than in Europe. I mean, the average family count more adults than kids, and the avarage in the Western wolrd is 2 to 3 kids fer household. So in Japan and in the US, there was at least one NES per family! In France, not so much, and in the UK, we're a far cry from that.

 

Of course, we must consider that those figures cover a long period of time so that un the US, I don't think that at one point, each family had a NES, but on the other hand you had used systems being sold, etc... It's still a massive difference, that mean something. When someone from the UK tell you that the NES had little importance in the UK, it's not just some snobbery over console systems over computer, or a Nintendo VS Sega thing. It's just a reality.

It doean't mean that the NES didn't had any importance in the world, but that in the UK, it didn't made that much of an impact.

Edited April 16, 2017 by CatPix

[atarilovesyou]

But whenever I read here about the fact that the NES wasn't as big of a success there as it was in the rest of the world, it's rarely without a healthy dose of jolly good snobbery. BOLLOCKS to THAT, I say.

 

I counter with some typical usual North American arrogance: I fully realize the NES wasn't a big deal in the UK. If I could only get myself to care, however, then...but, blimey, I just can't do it. I could go on, but again...I just...can't...care...anymore...

[Tanooki]

There's no reason to care really. They were treated by a multi-language backwater that was more of a pain in the ass to release games to than not, so they got the short end of the stick. France would be the one that would stand aside of that some because the games put out in the NA market included more than the US which included French Canadian areas so there were more games put into French. It's far easier and cheaper to just shove out games in a region where you're dealing with one common language, and even then localization could be questionable going from Japanese to English(and french) but then the added cost, effort, and guesswork on how many copies to make into spanish, german, french, and so on was clearly not a profitable priority to them.

[high voltage]

There's no reason to care really. They were treated by a multi-language backwater that was more of a pain in the ass to release games to than not, so they got the short end of the stick. France would be the one that would stand aside of that some because the games put out in the NA market included more than the US which included French Canadian areas so there were more games put into French. It's far easier and cheaper to just shove out games in a region where you're dealing with one common language, and even then localization could be questionable going from Japanese to English(and french) but then the added cost, effort, and guesswork on how many copies to make into spanish, german, french, and so on was clearly not a profitable priority to them.

Actually, that is very true.

But then I've heard that Game Boy was more successful in France than in the rest of Europe, go figure. And Game Boy was huge in Europe, so Nintendo did something right.

Edited April 17, 2017 by high voltage

[mr_me]

Mattel handled NES distribution in both Canada and the UK. France had a different distributor according to Wikipedia. Canadian materials were bilingual, not sure about UK and France which might have been unilingual.

[Lost Dragon]

Little/no point explaining things from scratch again..the timing, Mattel fiasco etc has all been laid out a good few pages back.

 

It is worth noting however that UK developers like RARE, Argonaut etc went onto play a big role in Nintendo's fortunes,post NES era..

 

SNES era especially.. Your SFX chip, Donkey Kong Country,so whilst many UK developers thought the NES had arrived too late to put resources into development, they made up the lost ground during the SNES era.

 

Plus, there was admiration for NES software, even if not so much the hardware..The Pickford Bros, felt the hardware to be below that of the C64, but said it's games were 10x better and thus, under contract with RARE became NES developers.

 

Things kick off over NES and UK due to poorly thought out YT videos, articles in UK games press presenting a history that never happened.

 

The reality is very straight forward, it arrived late, poorly handled by Mattel, UK industry in process of moving onto 16 bit systems..

 

 

The End.

[ProAssassin79]

I remember in the UK going into toys r us to look for something for my birthday. I wanted the NES but my parents could only afford the ATARI 2600 Junior. i already had the spectrum 48k (or rather my dad did). It was a little disappointing but never thought much about it after that. I've got one(several) now but feel it mostly through borrowed nostalgia.

[high voltage]

I used to own a complete set of Total! (58 issues), UKs NES/GB magazine, loved reading them.

[CatPix]

Mattel handled NES distribution in both Canada and the UK. France had a different distributor according to Wikipedia. Canadian materials were bilingual, not sure about UK and France which might have been unilingual.

The distributor was first ASD, for 6 months, so their influence was neglectible. Between 1987 and 1990 it was Bandai, and after 1990, Nintendo themselves.

 

There's no reason to care really. They were treated by a multi-language backwater that was more of a pain in the ass to release games to than not, so they got the short end of the stick. France would be the one that would stand aside of that some because the games put out in the NA market included more than the US which included French Canadian areas so there were more games put into French. It's far easier and cheaper to just shove out games in a region where you're dealing with one common language, and even then localization could be questionable going from Japanese to English(and french) but then the added cost, effort, and guesswork on how many copies to make into spanish, german, french, and so on was clearly not a profitable priority to them.

I never though of the influence of having French Canadian games translated making more games available in French. It's certainly something that helped. I clearly remember that NES games came here in two flavors/regions (even 3, but the third was uncommon) a generic European one, with the game in English, and the manual in 4 languages, a FAH version, sometime in English or French, and instructions in French and Dutch, and a rarer FRA, which was French only.

 

Actually, that is very true.

But then I've heard that Game Boy was more successful in France than in the rest of Europe, go figure. And Game Boy was huge in Europe, so Nintendo did something right.

 

I wouldn't know, but it was very successful that's for sure. Back before the 2000's and the craze in retrogaming you would see kids sellign their games for nothing in garage sales

I can see two reasons : first, France is one of the first countries in the late 70's to start importing massively japanese animes, then quickly sending French written scenarios to be drawn by Japanese studios (Ulysses 31, the whole "Once upon a time..." series, etc...). By the 90's, France was the first importer of mangas, and is still the first one as of today.

So there was a demand for Japanese culture, and the Master System, then the NES and the Super NES provided.

 

Being unzoned and the game having less content, it was probably easier to port Game Boy games than NES or SNES games (even if some games did a Japan-France direct travel on the NES, but that was rare) for one market only.

And you can add Sega and the Game Gear, that forced Nintendo to react.

Early Game Boy ads here were pretty generic but they quickly made specific ones. I can recall one where Wario shout "Dumbass" a rare occurence of a (light) profanity in an ad... in a Nintendo ad no less!

 

It's a whole different question, but I guess that such discrepancies might be explained too by how the different Nintendo offices in different countries sell or promote the games and systems.

In recent examples, the game "Solatorobo : Red the Hunter" received a Japanese release (of course) a North American release, and a ... French release.

Don't look for a UK release, or a German one. the PAL version is French only, there isn't any option to set English in the menus. (well maybe if you stick the cart in a DS set in English... but I doubt it).

In older examples, back to the Game Boy era; due to some censorship, we know that the French and German versions of Zelda : Link's Awakening on Game Boy was sourced directly from Japan, and not from the US versions like all other European releases.

Strangely, when localization happens, it's not unheard of that France and Germany happen to get the same stuff, directly from Japan, and that isn't even tied to Nintendo.

The NA and PAL release for Resident Evil : Director's cut are notorious in that Capcom claimed their restaured the color, complete FMV intro movie, but in reality, it wasn't...

Except for the French and German versions. Apparently someone there called Japan, and both PAL French and German versions have the color uncensored FMV (a remarquably ironic feature given the usually huge censorship in German video games versions )

 

In even more recent stuff, the Nintendo Switch in France is clearly sold as "the home system you can carry everywhere". In the UK, the ads state nothing, leavign to the consumer to decide if it's a home or portable system.

The spanish version apparently reference a song with the slogan "cuando quieras, donde quieras, como quieras" (anytime, anywhere, any way you want?) but from what little I recall form Spanish, doesn't say what system it is.

So at least in France, someone at Nintendo decided that they should tell the market what the Switch was instead of letting the consumer decide.

Edited April 17, 2017 by CatPix

[Tanooki]

Actually, that is very true.

But then I've heard that Game Boy was more successful in France than in the rest of Europe, go figure. And Game Boy was huge in Europe, so Nintendo did something right.

Fair enough, but if one thing Nintendo has been a solid rock with consistency vs market size has been handhelds. They've never released a failure. They've had a remodel or two that sold far less than others like the late GB Micro and DSi, but look at the overall values, and also the fact third parties have only on the handheld side not thrown them under the bus either.

[high voltage]

But anyways, USA loved their outdated 8-bit technology, according to this guy.........zzip........

[mbd30]

But anyways, USA loved their outdated 8-bit technology, according to this guy.........zzip........

 

Anything that isn't the state of the art video game technology is to be thrown into the trash heap. What are we even doing on a classic game forum? We should switch to Playstation 4 at once.

[Lost Dragon]

David Darling of Codemasters, talked of going to CES for a couple of years, talk being focused at these shows on the likes of the Amiga, suddenly the NES appears, people dismiss it as something of a joke, it being more like a toy than a serious contender...

 

But, on his return a year later, the NES was everywhere, it had gone mass market, seemingly overnight.

 

Nintendo had created such a huge market, Codemasters had to get involved in NES development, where as the Commodore C64 GS and Amstrad GX4000 by comparison, had failed to create any real market what so ever.

 

Simon Pick, who did Rodland on NES, was another UK coder who praised the NES hardware, describing it as surprisingly powerful, saying scrolling was super easy, praising it's sprite ability,along with audio qualities.

 

So the hardware did find appreciation from the UK development community.

[high voltage]

Especially Codemasters won, Nintendo lost, I liked that a lot.

[atarilovesyou]

Especially Codemasters won, Nintendo lost, I liked that a lot.

 

What a curious conclusion you derived from the historical record.

[juansolo]

-----------------------

Number of TV's in the UK

1986

18,704,732

Roughly 1 TV per 3 people in the UK

Also costed per year in 1988 around 62 pounds are taxed per TV set per year £ 62.50

---------------

UK is in recession far longer then US and Japan in the 1980's

---------------

 

 

 

TV license was/is taxed per household, not per TV. Now it's been changed to be 'capable of receiving live broadcast TV that originated in the UK'. No doubt it'll change again as we've got to fund the BBC and the shite they show/make* somehow eh?

 

*well apart from Attenborough's stuff, that's pretty awesome

 

I've posted this to another thread, I'll paraphrase. The European video game and computer market went something like this:

 

We got the pong clones, then the VCS. Then we adopted computing for a few reasons. It suited our psyche at the time, they were actually quite cheap (we're talking the late 70's early 80's here, hardly a time of financial prosperity), and more importantly, so were the games. Also computers were seen as educational, so were bought for kids by parents to 'learn computing', because that's the future!

 

So we got our Spectrums and C64s. The more wealthy got BBC Micros and 8-Bit Ataris. When the next generation came along, we just moved over to it, so that was the Atari ST and then the Amiga. Certainly when the Amiga caught up it got a MASSIVE amount of love. Mainly because it was millions of miles beyond everything at the time. Custom hardware to make shifting things around a doddle, sensible price, awesome sound. Remember at this time the IBM PC was still CGA and I'm not even sure Adlib existed yet. So they were massively limited machines. The Macintosh was black and white and enormously expensive. So we embraced the 16-bit era hard.

 

Which is when the NES came along, which looked like a step backwards and had massively expensive games to boot. The Master System did a lot better here. But it wasn't until the SNES and the Megadrive (Genesis) came along that console gaming really started coming back. Especially as video rental stores started carrying the games at that point. Atari and Commodore basically failed to get new hardware out early enough and respond to the PC going EGA then VGA and the SoundBlaster coming along. By the time Doom came out, it was all over for the 16-bit era.

 

That time will always be the golden age of computing for me. It was before the internet and CDs. So BBSs and floppies were king. There was a massive scene and community around the Amiga and ST in Europe the ripples of which were felt worldwide in gaming. So many from that era that started out as tiny operations, demo coders and crackers went on to become giants of the gaming industry. All before the corporate machine gobbled it all up turned it into the money making machine it is now.

 

So yes, we Europeans (I still consider myself that despite brexit!) didn't get the NES. Like you [the US], we were pretty oblivious to what was happening across the pond because as far as we were concerned, the crash never happened so the NES had nothing to save. Computer gaming was alive and thriving.

[mr_me]

 

What a curious conclusion you derived from the historical record.

High Voltage may be referring to Galoob vs Nintendo. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nintendo_of_America,_Inc.

[Schizophretard]

I don't understand how the video game console crash didn't apply to Europe. Many of our consoles were in Europe because America dominated the console market at the time. When our market crashed it would have affected those same consoles in Europe. For an example of what I mean, if a Japanese console crash was to happen before the XBOX was on the scene then here in America Nintendo's, SEGA's, and Sony's consoles would be taken off the shelves with their games going in bargain bins. So, a Japanese console crash would also be an American console crash just as an American console crash would be a European console crash. One of the reasons cited for the console crash was competition from home computers. What kind of gaming was the guy in the video mostly talking about? Playing games on home computers. Where is his list of consoles that were dominating in Europe between the time of the crash but before they got the Master System? To me it seems that all this talk about how much gaming on home computers was dominating the market is a good indication that they were affected by the console crash. Not just that but even more affected considering that the NES was able to revive the market here but couldn't do it for Europe. I mean, while we were enjoying console gaming again with the NES they were still gaming like it was 1984. Also, his argument that if Nintendo didn't revive the video game market someone else like Commodore would is missing the point because it was a console market crash. If Commodore would have taken Nintendo's place then it would likely result in gaming on home computers with gaming in America through the 80's looking like Europe's. How would that be reviving the video game console market?