JimmydelaKopin

I was wondering where this discussion was located; I knew it had to be somewhere. Over in another forum, some people are debating whether or not there will be a crash in the market for modern consoles. I pointed out that there won't be--because there won't ever be another boom. The games for modern consoles are simply not making enough money for grq (get-rich-quick) investors to invest in, as was done in the early 80's, what with every department store and half-a-dozen specialized stores and all the toy stores selling the consoles and games. Too many vendors, many of them grq-types convinced they could make gold from silicon, glutted the market at once. Then, when said grq-types went under, the gamemakers realized just how small their market really was...and they went under, and console-makers, similarly affected, were severely hurt as well. Like I said, current games are simply not generating the kind of sales (or the kind of popularity--with exceptions noted) to entice the grq-types--and those are the people whose actions cause the booms and busts in any market. However, retro-gaming is starting to experience a small boom, what with people selling Chinese knock-offs of retro-games on plug-in games, official plug-in games, retro discs, game stores selling old systems...even this entire threadcity is proof of the popularity of retro-gaming. The gtr-types are slowly making an appearance. I think plug-in games--or dedicated systems--will be the first casualty. If retro-gaming stores are selling official plug-in games, and even a big name like Wal-Mart is selling a Chinese knock-off plug-in game (and I've seen it in Wal-Mart in the generic red box toy aisle)...then the market is beginning to blend together. Quality is slowly being pushed aside by quantity. And the glut is beginning to accumulate. Given the investment one must make in such games==and I mean that one must physically remove one from the TV and plug in another if one wants to switch games==I don't think this trend can last much longer. Handhelds can be easily stored and changed (set one down and pick up another); so can retro-game discs (remove one and install another). These dedicated systems...they're on their way to becoming the Fast Eddie's of the 00's.

My goodness! TandemSpoony could be out of a "job"! The Spoony Experiment might come crashing to the ground! Someone get Japan to crank out more "Ring" clones, stat! The loss of the modern-day Larry Buchanon? Can snarky movie critics all across the internet survive? ('scuse me while I go to the crocodile farm for more tears...)

Ah, Swift couldn't have done it better...though he would have been a bit more flowery with his language, no doubt... A thread saying that Mario is overexposed...and I, with my little post, transmogrify it into a thread saying Mario's games are all good, so what if he's in them? Nothing like tilting at icons to bring out the love for the icons, hmmm?

Correct me if I'm wrong (like I need to tell people to do this! ), but the problem here is that Nintendo seems to be devoting an inordinate amount of its gamemaking in Mario-based games. Thing is, of course they are. They own Mario. And that's generally the only game they do own. Think I'm wrong? Fine. Off the top of your heads, come up with just two Nintendo-owned games that don't involve the Mario franchise (and yes, that includes the Donkey Kong stuff). Unlike Sega, Sony, and others, Nintendo started out its console entry by banking on Mario and only Mario. Because of that decision, they don't have a lot of wiggle room left. The idea of such company icons is a bit overdone these days: Namco--Pac-Man Capcom--Ryu Sony--Sweet Tooth Sega--Sonic Midway--Raiden (or any other MK character) LucasArts--Darth Vader (or any other SW character) ...but the problem with Nintendo is that they haven't really made anything not Mario-related. They painted themselves into this corner. amd I can't see a way out. Then again, maybe the problem is that they have the wrong icon. Manybe they can bring back Stanley?

Like I said, minorleagueguy, the games have been released before, just in flat cases, for less than the price you suggest. The game itself is around half the cost; the other half is the cute cabinet case that replaces the flat case. Yes, half the money goes to the retro-cabinet. You want cute, you gotta pay for it!

Well that's a strange name for it. They do have these pills today that work wonders... Oh wait! You mean the actual Centipede videogame! This post is a delusion! There's nothing here! Move along!

Cryptik76...you're kidding, right? Think of the easter eggs that would be hidden in such a game. "Kill all the Philistines and unlock the bedroom chamber of Delilah!" "If you stone Jesus in the right place, you can unlock Jesus's new form from Revelation!" "During the opening sequence, do up-down-left-right and push X, and you'll see a new feature under Options: Renderings. Click it, and you can see a rendering of the woman in Song of solomon." Yeah, Christians wouldn't object to such trivialization. I can't wait to buy the game!

That's what people said when PS1 games first debuted at $40/game. "At prices like that, people simply won't buy the crap games, forcing the makers to make good games to recoup their investments." Gee, we're almost to the PS3, and I'm still waiting for that to happen. Seems that yall are forgetting one significant difference between those early 80-'s consoles and the current consoles, one that I've been trying to proverbially yell from the rooftops in other threadcities that touch on this subject: The console-makers then didn't enforce their code-rights; the console-makers nowadays vigorously enforce their code-rights. What I mean is: back then, the console-makers didn't discourage 3rd-party gamemakers (that is, gamemakers with no ties to the console-makers) from making games for their systems. They understood that more games for a console means more console sales...and if more consoles are sold, and the console-maker is also the primary gamemaker for said console, then more 1st-party games (games straight from the console-maker) will be sold. Of course, that means taking a chance that some of the games will be ...less than perfect, to be charitable. But the idea is promoting more game sales, which means more console sales, which means more games for a system. Then Nintendo came along and spoiled all this. They came along and enforced their code-rights, requiring that all gamemakers that wanted to make Nintendo console games get their permission to use their code that allows said games to work on their consoles. When one manufacturer simply stole the code (Atari/Tengen, with Tetris), Nintendo's lawyers shut them down so fast it wasn't silly. Thus, these days gamemakers need permission to make games for current consoles...meaning that the console-makers can refuse permission to any game they deem "unworthy" according to their own arbitrary criteria. I'm certain I'm not the first to suspect that Sony's criteria had more to do with banning games that could prove to have better gameplay than their own official games, what with their ban on retro-gaming discs when that idea was first proposed. Next thing you know, retro-gaming discs are approved...but now each disc must have at least one game no one in the states has ever heard of, let alone ever wanted to play. Or, to use the Activision disc as an example, the player would have to reboot the disc each time he wants to play even a different variation of the game he chooses, let alone a different game. The idea these days is controlling the market. Thanks to lawyers ready to enforce the console-makers' code-rights at the drop of a retainer, the games market for modern consoles consists solely of games the console-makers want for their consoles. Which should tell you something, given how many awful games and even more awful licensing tie-ins have been released for the current consoles. You'd think, with so many games out, and so many of them being awful, that the starting prices for them would be about $20, not $40, in the usual outlets, if only to promote a few sales. Nope, the gamemakers want an exhorbitant starting price for a game they can't sell at even a fourth of said price. Perhaps the price of doing business with the console-makers? As I said previously, there won't be a crash in current gaming, precisely because there will never be a boom in current gaming. Everyone knows that the current games are simply not popular as a whole, even though a few games in particular are. No one's going to be fooled into trying to cash in on them. The fact that the console-makers control the games market for their consoles is just another reason why there will never be such a boom: they won't allow too many popular games on their consoles at one time. Retro-gaming, on the other hand...what with plug-in console games, retro-cabinet cases for handhelds, stores selling refurbished 80's consoles and games, and even people making new games for the old systems...I can see a boom for this market coming very soon. And a crash coming even sooner.

Very good point. The last thing we need is for videogames to get their own Fredric Wertham.

A couple of quick notes: From what I understand, the PS2 isn't supposed to be able to read home-burned CDs. Also, there are DVDs that aren't coded to be compatible with the PS2. Since I'm an otaku as well as a gamer, I found this out personally when a DVD I bought wouldn't load on the PS2. Sony said it wasn't the PS2's fault (I called their tech support), and the anime company said the DVD worked on their players (I sent it back demanding a functioning replacement). Then I received a letter from the company telling me that the title in question wasn't coded for the PS2...but they let me get another DVD that was coded for the PS2 for them for free to replace the noncompatible DVD. (Nowadays I have a DVD player, so I use the PS2 for games only.)

Talk about cashing in on a trend! These games were released as handhelds some time ago. All MGA did was replace the old flat case with a case shaped like a miniature cabinet. I know because I own the Asteroids, Centipede, and Pac-Man handhelds from this company, and the graphics and gameplay are exactly like those shown and described.

Baby Pac-Man isn't likely to happen for the same reason Gorf isn't likely to happen. It's a Midway game built with Namco trademarks. Ms. Pac-Man has survived only because Midway opted to give Namco full rights to it. 957328[/snapback] And this is why such partnerships are bad, people. Midway and Namco join forces to make two games: Gorf, and Baby Pac-Man. Now the two have parted company, and neither can make these games without dealing with the other owner. As the old curse goes, "May you have partners." And the curse takes effect here. And, shannon, what I was getting at is that Namco only considers Galaga, Galaxian, and (this time) Galaga '88 marketable. Why not put a chain of sequels on one disc, like Capcom did with their SF series? (Granted, it leaves out three or four of them, but it does include different incarnations of the characters!) What I want is a disc that caters to a company's history or the history of a series from a company, not merely some "put the popular games on a disc" game disc. Seriously, Namco is getting quite silly with this. How many times are they going to release the same handful of games on retro game discs? At this rate, Namco will be looking up landfills in New Mexico to place all the unsold "new compilation" Pac-Man/Galaga/Galaxian/Ms. Pac-Man discs! Sheesh, is it too much to ask for Namco to make compilation discs consisting of games they haven't released half-a-dozen times already? That's all I'm saying.

My bad. But, given that one of the levels in Gorf is a Galaxian game, I figured it was another Namco import. I guess Midway had the license to use Galaxian for one of their own games when Bally-Midway was the importer of Namco games. So drop the Gorf reference from my list. That's the disc I'd buy. Either one with all the Galaxian sequels...or one with all the Pac-Man sequels--including a good pinball emulator for Baby Pac-Man!

I'll wait for that Final Fight in 3D that Capcom's supposed to be working on. It'll have the same gameplay but with characters that aren't so cheesy or a plot so ridiculous. I mean...so there's a guy who wants to end the warfare between the gangs and unite them? And when he's killed, the gangs suspect one another for the death? Me...I'd suspect a SWATman doing a preemptive strike. "The gangs of New York united? No problem here, move along!..." But since the "gangs" in that movie are all pretty silly...they could have hired Don Knotts to be the leader uniting the gangs. It would have made sense even then.

My brother bought the Capcom and Namco collections on the same day. I decided to give each a try. Capcom has bonus info, which I like...but their constant use of SF series graphics and sounds is a bit annoying...and many of the games are near impossibly hard to unlock bonus material. Meanwhile, Namco's "50th anniversary" disc is more hype than good games. All Namco did was take a handful of its popular games (with all the DIP simulations) and put them on a game, adding 80's pop music as a "bonus" that one can't turn off or otherwise control. Hate to say it, but the Namco disc smells of desperation to make it out before Capcom--and before SW: Battlefront 2. It would have been better if they had put out a collection of their space games, given that all their answers to Space Invaders and other sich games are in fact a long chain of sequels: Galaxian, Gorf, Galaga, Galaga '88, Gaplus, the new Galaga that appeared in the arcades a few years ago as part of a MAME collection (Galaga, Mappy, Xevious), and Galaga Arrangement (from the previous Namco PS2 disc). I'd pay money for a disc with all those games on it and no other. Either do all--good and bad--or don't bother, in my opinion. Sheesh is it really hard to see how Midway/Atari does it right?

My favorite 80's videogame magazine was Electronic Fun. I still buy old issues of that mag I can find at flea markets. My favorite parts (aside from the game reviews) are the Unknown Arcader article series and the Ask the Game Doctor column. I swear, I'd love to meet those two. It would be so super if either of them were forum members here. ...still, I wonder if the UA still wears purple shoes...or if the Game Doctor is still licensed to practice hos "Smart Bomb Therapy"

And yet another person points out what the gamer from the grave here has said all along. Yes, one of the biggest problems is that arcades have been convinced by gamemakers that their latest games are more fun than their older games...even when the designers themselves say otherwise. That's why arcades that make money have MAMEs and touchscreens in them. The gameplay is easy to learn, and the accomplishments are quick to see. Of course, this also explains why retro-gaming is such big business in the first place. My brother who used to buy all sorts of new games for the PS and the PS2 bought one classic collection...and realized he enjoyed the older games more than the newer ones. If I had a car, and the arcade still opens, I'd head down to Game Klub every week, just to play the MAMEs and touchscreens. Unfortunately, my car's a Katrina victim, and the buses don't run as often at night...and Game Klub only opens from 7PM to 1AM. Still...if I could go there, I would.

I think the problem here is that yall don't understand what really caused the crash in videogames. I do, because I saw the same phenomenon cause the b-&-w comics crash in the mid 80's and the Image-not-substance comics crash in the early 90's and the bad-girl comics crash in the late 90s. It's the Get-Rich-Quick phenomenon. What happens is that some people see the money that regular stores are making selling something of huge interest, something "hot". They pool their money, rent some storefront, rent a cash register, and heavily order what is "hot" to fill their stores. Seems like a good idea, but they forget that there are at least 5-10 others thinking the same way... ...and they're competing the bigger, more established stores for the same sales as well. The producers of said "hot" items sees their sales increase in such a short time. They crank out more of their product not just to handle current sales but also to handle projected sales, doing their best to cash in on the trend as well. So the market gets flooded with said "hot" merchandise. However, not everyone wants multiple copies of the "hot" item...and if they do, there's no way said people will buy enough to keep all the places selling it awash in cash. Thus, the smaller newer stores suffer huge losses...and with them gone, the producers of the "hot" items are stuck with overproduced merchandise they can't unload at a price that's profitable for them. Thus, they go under too. Next thing you know, such merchandise fades from the marketplace, as better products appeal to sensible customers...and the get-rich-quick folks start looking for the next "hot" item, certain that one day their schemes will make them millionaires. I don't see a crash happening any time soon...but that's because I don't see such a boom happening any time soon...except with retro-gaming.

Actually, there was no EGM back in the 80's...unless it got its start in the late 80's. The top two magazines for videogames then were Electronic Fun and Electronic Games. Then there was Vidiot (which was MTvish) and Joystik (and they insisted the word is spelled that way), Family Computing (just as the title says)... ...and Blip. Hey, it was a guilty pleasure! I was young then!

As the joke goes, "lead me not into temptation. Just tell me the general location; I can find the place myself...." I really shouldn't answer this, but I will. I shouldn't answer this because the answer should be obvious. It's the same reason why pencil-&-paper Biblical rpgs never do well. The problem is that such games ultimately reduce God to a power source. That might seem "cool"...but remember that the people in the bible given great miraculous power by God did so under very strict circumstances, and had strict codes of conduct to follow. To reduce such things to "send character to fire pit to pick up ashes, go to trader to get sackcloth, go to temple to purge negative points"...well, it's not that it can't be done, but that it's considered trivializing the bible and Christianity. And as long as Christianity and "Christianity" remain the predominant faiths in America, the Bible will remain a source of inspiration for trivia videogames alone. Tempting to give such grist to Jack Thompson's mill this idea may be...but let's just stick to Zelda and Gauntlet, hmmm?

Indeed. carpecarne...back in the 80's, all the games, both console and arcade, were "endless" games, games that go on until you drop from exhaustion. The way the games got people was through scoring. The further you went, usually the higher a score you could get. Thus, it was competition to see who could get the highest score. Nowadays the big rage is finishes and special features...but I can still remember a time when I played The Empire Strikes Back four over an hour--and enjoyed every minute of its endless fun. Gotta love the old-school games!

And let's not forget the Vigilante 8 games! Okay...then how about the SW: Demolition game? All right...how about their buying up Imagic and Infocom? They did make that new nontext Zork game. Gee...tough crowd.

Some more info, perhaps to cloud, perhaps to clarify... I found this in the Sept. 1993 issue of Video Games. According to Howard Wen, what was dumped in the landfill was not just E.T. cartridges. According to his article, "defective" 2600s, 5200s, and games (Pac-Man and E.T. are mentioned), and Atari computers were all dumped in the NM landfill. The landfill is said to be about 100 miles away from El Paso, Texas, which is where the "defective" merchandise is said to have originated. It's supposed to be 11 truckloads, all crushed under bulldozers, with security guards keeping away onlookers...and the reason New Mexico was chosen is because the state had a law against landfill scavenging, while Texas doesn't, which is why they didn't use the landfill 15 miles from the El Paso plant. Don't know how much this adds to the discussion...but, perhaps with the right map...the landfill can be discovered?

This is a topic near and dear to this gamer-from-the-grave's heart. I've been to all of the 11 local arcades...but my favorite was Putt-Putt. Four courses (two of which I could net half the greens in one putt), skeeball, pinball (my favorite machine of all time Pinbot was there), and video games of all sorts. When I heard from the owner that times were getting tough, I actually wrote to Putt-Putt, Inc. for help on saving the place...only to find out the place was a franchise, so they could do nothing to save the place. When I saw the place being razed...my heart was crushed. For that reason alone I'll never go to an Oschner medical facility. Dammit, Oschner took my Putt-Putt from me!!!

If Jack Thompson has personally told you to stop harrassing him.. ...you might be a video game junkie. If you like the Tonya Harding joke on Tattoo Assassins... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you've seen the cartoons for Q*Bert, Donkey Kong, Frogger, and Dragon's Lair, but didn't know who Mickey Mouse is until Sorcerer's Apprentice came out for the 2600... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you've ever had a debate on whether joystick is spelled with or without a "c"... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you wondered why Q*Bert got the endorsement deals and not Mr. Cool or Pogo Joe... ...you might be a video game junkie. If controller compatibility was the main factor in determining which PC to buy... "C-64? Hey, I save money on controllers so I can buy more games!" ...you might be a videogame junkie. If you know by heart which games released by American companies are actually Japanese imports... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you've ever wondered why LucasArts released Rescue on Fractalus but not Behind Jagiline... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you've ever looked for "power pills" at your local pharmacy... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you think the octopus is the natural enemy of the piranha... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you've taken up karate so you can produce fireballs with your hands... ...you might be a video game junkie. If the government agency that makes you paranoid is OSHA because they tried to have Hard Hat Mack taken off the market... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you're building a weapon to shoot down any UFOs you see... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you know what SNK stands for but still need help with JFK... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you actually know what "Donkey Kong" is supposed to mean in English... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you go to a Bally's Casino and expect to see wall-to-wall Bally videogames... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you still have the matches from Deadline and never used them because you know they're an important clue... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you know when and where to use "plugh" in Haunted House... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you've ever played Pac-Man on your watch... "Damn, that's a small joystick!" ...you might be a video game junkie. If you're still waiting for the release of Swordquest: Airworld... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you've kept people waiting in line to buy from a Coca-cola vending machine because you were playing the video game built into the machine... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you've ever asked why a person was hurt if he got "MAMEd"... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you own all 8 different kinds of controllers for the 2600... ...you might be a video game junkie. If your idea of exercise is using the Activator ring to play Eternal Warriors on your Genesis... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you owned a PC and BASIC Programming for the 2600 but you're still mad that Atari never released the keyboard peripheral for it... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you played Concentration on your 2600 for over an hour because "there was nothing better to do"... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you have a tattoo of an Archon character--not a stylized version, the actual graphics... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you don't understand why Tapper was modified into Root Beer Tapper... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you memorized which coin slots take money without registering a credit at your local arcade... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you still don't know that "Sheng Long" was an April Fool's gag perpetrated by Electronic Gaming Monthly... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you've ever been in an earthquake at an arcade and asked your friend to keep the game you're playing from falling over... ...you might be a video game junkie. If most of your denim clothes have Activision patches sewn onto them... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you've debated the merits of LCD versus LED... ...you might be a video game junkie. If you've ever seen a Lupin III anime and blurted, "Hey, it's Cliff!"... ...you might be a video game junkie. Finally... If you get these jokes but not the style in which they're told, because you're too busy playing videogame on your TV to actually watch a Jeff Foxworthy routine on it... ...you might be a video game junkie.