IGN: Revising History: The Crash of '83

[newcoleco]

Interresting thread.

 

This is my point of view, and we can't deny the computer effect.

 

Alcazar, Boulder Dash, Rock 'n' Bolt, and Skying are only a few examples of Coleco games not release by their original companies. We had to wait someone else to release these prototypes in cartridge. For me, the video game crash started when third party development stoped for the ColecoVision game system, and it was after the bad debute of the Coleco Adam computer (with bugs, and delayed).

 

For example, Alcazar the Forgotten Fortress by Activision was in development for the ColecoVision in 1984 but they decided to stop between late 1984 and early 1985. In 1985, Activision did release Alcazar but not the Coleco version. We had to wait Telegames decision to release this game for the ColecoVision.

 

Saying the video game crash was in 1983 is, in my humble opinion, the Atari point of view, because Coleco Industries did a big profit in 1983, and expected profits in 1984 too, with new good titles for the ColecoVision game system. I will say that the video game crash for the american consoles was in late 1984, giving this oppotunity in 1985 for Nintendo to take place in America with the NES, without any real competition (other consoles). After that, video game consoles didn't stoped to exist, so the crash was more a short decline giving a bad time for the US market, but not for the gamers and the video games.

 

I do see the begginning of a real video game crash in America right now. It's partially because of the "casual gaming" effect that get bad reactions from the hardcore gamers and can't be exploited much more now. It's also partially because of the economic crisis, with sad decisions like game development exported to India (it's not a fantasy, it's real).

Edited January 10, 2009 by newcoleco

[ddaniels]

I honestly don't understand how todays video game stores actually stay in business with the way piracy is today.

 

Piracy isn't that widespread in console games really. Piracy requires a mod chip these days, which is something that I'm guessing less than 1% of all next gen consoles have. Of course this is a different story for PC games.

 

On a related note, the reason Nintendo decided to go with cartridges for the N64 rather than cds (and lost Final Fantasy 7, Metal Gear Solid, etc) was due to fear of piracy. It turned out that piracy wasn't that much of a problem for the Playstation, which went on to sell over 100 million units while the N64 only sold around 30-35 million. One of Nintendo's biggest mistakes ever (the Virtual Boy being another of course). I wish this never happened because this is when Nintendo started losing all of its third party support, which is still something it's trying to recover from.

 

I personally believe that there is probablly more piracy taking place on todays systems than you realize. I'd be shocked if less than 1% of todays consoles are modded. What does everyone else think?

[Artlover]

Piracy isn't that widespread in console games really.

Were do you get that idea? Piracy is at it's highest levels ever according to all the reports by all the experts.

 

Piracy requires a mod chip these days, which is something that I'm guessing less than 1% of all next gen consoles have.

Nope, well depends. Not all consoles require a modchip. The Xbox and Xbox360 do not. Even the PS1 and PS2 never "needed" one (and I'm not even talking swaptrick methods here). Excluding the PS3 (which I don't think has been hacked yet) only the GC and WII come to mind as "needing" a chip.

 

Even for those that want/need to go that route: Modchips are quite cheap and easy to install (many have solderless options).

 

Of course this is a different story for PC games.

Yeah, PC is actually slightly more difficult in some ways. Hardcore expert hackers and crackers need to study/edit/modify the code to remove various protections and create patchers/keygens so people can install the fixed pirated versions. Where as in the consoles it's mostly just a matter of make a copy and your done.

[chrisbid]

Piracy isn't that widespread in console games really.

Were do you get that idea? Piracy is at it's highest levels ever according to all the reports by all the experts.

 

Piracy requires a mod chip these days, which is something that I'm guessing less than 1% of all next gen consoles have.

Nope, well depends. Not all consoles require a modchip. The Xbox and Xbox360 do not. Even the PS1 and PS2 never "needed" one (and I'm not even talking swaptrick methods here). Excluding the PS3 (which I don't think has been hacked yet) only the GC and WII come to mind as "needing" a chip.

 

Even for those that want/need to go that route: Modchips are quite cheap and easy to install (many have solderless options).

 

Of course this is a different story for PC games.

Yeah, PC is actually slightly more difficult in some ways. Hardcore expert hackers and crackers need to study/edit/modify the code to remove various protections and create patchers/keygens so people can install the fixed pirated versions. Where as in the consoles it's mostly just a matter of make a copy and your done.

 

 

ease of piracy only helped the PSX

 

as for percentage of modded consoles, 1% may be a tad low, but im fairly sure it is under 5%

[Artlover]

as for percentage of modded consoles, 1% may be a tad low, but im fairly sure it is under 5%

What do you base that on?

 

http://play.tm/news/5345/console-piracy-on-the-rise/

http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/the-co...-piracy-squeeze

They are talking about piracy rates in excess of 20% on consoles. If 20% of console gamers are playing pirated copies, then the number of modded consoles logicaly can't be that far behind.

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/10/10/fa...-the-xbox-360/1

20,000 downloads just in a few hours.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/console-piracy,video-310.html

Video discussion on console piracy, how easy it is, and other odd tid bits. No real numbers or anything, but it doesn't play it down at all.

 

 

Look at usenet and torrents. Activity is very high. I doubt people are downloading these huge files just to "have", but rather to play which means they have something to play it on.

[KIWASABI]

as for percentage of modded consoles, 1% may be a tad low, but im fairly sure it is under 5%

What do you base that on?

 

http://play.tm/news/5345/console-piracy-on-the-rise/

http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/the-co...-piracy-squeeze

They are talking about piracy rates in excess of 20% on consoles. If 20% of console gamers are playing pirated copies, then the number of modded consoles logicaly can't be that far behind.

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/10/10/fa...-the-xbox-360/1

20,000 downloads just in a few hours.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/console-piracy,video-310.html

Video discussion on console piracy, how easy it is, and other odd tid bits. No real numbers or anything, but it doesn't play it down at all.

 

 

Look at usenet and torrents. Activity is very high. I doubt people are downloading these huge files just to "have", but rather to play which means they have something to play it on.

 

I think that these numbers are pretty skewed and here's why:

 

Game pirates tend to end up "owning" WAY more games than they would ever normally buy. It's not unlikely to see someone with a hacked xbox with 100 games for it. Now, if that person hadn't modded that xbox and instead just bought games, he probably would've only bought around 10 games, just like the average gamer. So just right there you can see how the numbers can be very skewed. One person is bootlegging the equivalent of 10 average gamers' game collections. So what does this mean? This means that this person is bootlegging way more games than he would ever actually buy, so the amount of money that is actually being "stolen" from the publisher's pockets is a lot lower than it seems (The 100 games he bootlegs is actually only preventing 10 games from being sold).

 

That 20% figure up there is probably a lot closer to 2% based on this hack observational logic of mine. There's no way that 20% of game consoles are modded. It's easily under 5%.

 

-Adam

[Artlover]

I think that these numbers are pretty skewed and here's why:

 

Game pirates tend to end up "owning" WAY more games than they would ever normally buy. It's not unlikely to see someone with a hacked xbox with 100 games for it. Now, if that person hadn't modded that xbox and instead just bought games, he probably would've only bought around 10 games, just like the average gamer. So just right there you can see how the numbers can be very skewed. One person is bootlegging the equivalent of 10 average gamers' game collections. So what does this mean? This means that this person is bootlegging way more games than he would ever actually buy, so the amount of money that is actually being "stolen" from the publisher's pockets is a lot lower than it seems (The 100 games he bootlegs is actually only preventing 10 games from being sold).

What does that have to do with the results of those two polls in the first two links? They simply asked 6000+ and 8000+ console gamers the question and in both cases, 20% replied that they played pirated games. There was no targeting console gamers who own 100's of games.

Edited January 13, 2009 by Artlover

[KIWASABI]

I think that these numbers are pretty skewed and here's why:

 

Game pirates tend to end up "owning" WAY more games than they would ever normally buy. It's not unlikely to see someone with a hacked xbox with 100 games for it. Now, if that person hadn't modded that xbox and instead just bought games, he probably would've only bought around 10 games, just like the average gamer. So just right there you can see how the numbers can be very skewed. One person is bootlegging the equivalent of 10 average gamers' game collections. So what does this mean? This means that this person is bootlegging way more games than he would ever actually buy, so the amount of money that is actually being "stolen" from the publisher's pockets is a lot lower than it seems (The 100 games he bootlegs is actually only preventing 10 games from being sold).

What does that have to do with the results of those two polls in the first two links? They simply asked 6000+ and 8000+ console gamers the question and in both cases, 20% replied that they played pirated games. There was no targeting console gamers who own 100's of games.

 

Alright, fair enough, I didn't read your references, I only looked at your figures, which I interpretted as 20% of console games are pirated, not 20% of gamers play pirated games. My question is this: what percentage of those 20% are playing their friends' pirated games? And what percentage of those gamers are playing emulators for NES? I've had friends with pirated systems, and I've played their systems, so that makes me part of that statistic. However, I do not pirate games myself. So how exactly is that statistic even useful if it doesn't refer to the percentage of players who actively pirate games?

 

By the way, I'm going to point out the obvious here and make it clear: this is a pointless "argument" (I don't even know what we're arguing here...that console piracy is more prevalent and widespread than I think it is?).

[ataridave]

While it certainly has it's flaws, IMHO, the IGN article was written to demonstrate that the crash was not just due to 2 games released on one console. And for the record, I played the heck out of the 2600 port of Pac-Man when I was a kid, in the early 1980's-as did my Mom, and a friend on our block. I still like it.

[KIWASABI]

While it certainly has it's flaws, IMHO, the IGN article was written to demonstrate that the crash was not just due to 2 games released on one console. And for the record, I played the heck out of the 2600 port of Pac-Man when I was a kid, in the early 1980's-as did my Mom, and a friend on our block. I still like it.

 

Well that's something you don't hear every day. But I think that I played the Pac-man port on my friend's Atari when I was 10 or 11 (back in 96 or so...yeah a long time after it actually released ) and didn't think it was too bad. But I guess I didn't really have much of a quality standard either growing up with the SNES and whatnot. Anyway, I hear people mention all the time that they love E.T., but I don't think I've ever heard anyone say they like the Pac-man port. How old were you? Did you play the arcade game a lot?

[AtticGamer]

I think the crash is blown out of prespective. It only happened in America, and only to the console market. Everywhere else everyone was enjoying their Arcades, Famicoms, C64s and ZX Spectrums.

[Lee9977]

some really validpoints made here. i have always thought the "crash" has taken way too much blame for a bad economy. Kids were hooked by that point. the next thing in gaming was obviously going to make what came before obsolete and those companies were not keeping up with the jones's so to speak and just didnt have what it took to keep the market

[J.Max]

Some of the comments from the readers are still pretty terrible here though. Case in point:

Why did these consoles and the companies that made them fail? Why did American videogame makers pack it up and go home?

 

The Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Bally Astrocade, the ColecoVision, the Coleco Gemini, the Emerson Arcadia 2001, the Fairchild Channel F System II, Magnavox Odyssey2, Mattel Intellivision, the Tandyvision, the VTech CreatiVision, and the Vectrex - none of those consoles survived past 1984, let alone flourished like the NES did from 1984 to 1994 - a ten year lifespan. Why?

 

Is it because they werent as powerful? Too expensive? Mismanaged and mismarketed? Not enough games? They fragmented the market? No, no, no, no and no.

 

The companies just didnt have their sh*t together in terms of software licensing. The software libraries were too diluted, and cimply didnt capture the public imagination.

 

The best selling game on the 2600 was the abysmal port of Pac Man, an arcade game meant to eat coins. But even the best 2600 games - Pitfall, River Raid, Adventure - were short, simple affairs.

 

If Atari had put an emphasis on quality control with its software, and had someone with the talent and vision of Miyamoto designing games with mass appeal meant to be played for weeks and months, not minutes or hours, they never would have gone under.

 

Yuck.

 

 

This might be one of the dumbest comments I've ever read. Yuck, indeed.

[atarian63]

Some of the comments from the readers are still pretty terrible here though. Case in point:

Why did these consoles and the companies that made them fail? Why did American videogame makers pack it up and go home?

 

The Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Bally Astrocade, the ColecoVision, the Coleco Gemini, the Emerson Arcadia 2001, the Fairchild Channel F System II, Magnavox Odyssey2, Mattel Intellivision, the Tandyvision, the VTech CreatiVision, and the Vectrex - none of those consoles survived past 1984, let alone flourished like the NES did from 1984 to 1994 - a ten year lifespan. Why?

 

Is it because they werent as powerful? Too expensive? Mismanaged and mismarketed? Not enough games? They fragmented the market? No, no, no, no and no.

 

The companies just didnt have their sh*t together in terms of software licensing. The software libraries were too diluted, and cimply didnt capture the public imagination.

 

The best selling game on the 2600 was the abysmal port of Pac Man, an arcade game meant to eat coins. But even the best 2600 games - Pitfall, River Raid, Adventure - were short, simple affairs.

 

If Atari had put an emphasis on quality control with its software, and had someone with the talent and vision of Miyamoto designing games with mass appeal meant to be played for weeks and months, not minutes or hours, they never would have gone under.

 

Yuck.

 

Simple short affairs were what arcade games were all about. People at that time wanted arcade games, not some pos puzzle or long winded RPG.

until 84 game consoles tried to be like the arcades. That is what really helped Coleco.

This might be one of the dumbest comments I've ever read. Yuck, indeed.

[atarian63]

Some of the comments from the readers are still pretty terrible here though. Case in point:

Why did these consoles and the companies that made them fail? Why did American videogame makers pack it up and go home?

 

The Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Bally Astrocade, the ColecoVision, the Coleco Gemini, the Emerson Arcadia 2001, the Fairchild Channel F System II, Magnavox Odyssey2, Mattel Intellivision, the Tandyvision, the VTech CreatiVision, and the Vectrex - none of those consoles survived past 1984, let alone flourished like the NES did from 1984 to 1994 - a ten year lifespan. Why?

 

Is it because they werent as powerful? Too expensive? Mismanaged and mismarketed? Not enough games? They fragmented the market? No, no, no, no and no.

 

The companies just didnt have their sh*t together in terms of software licensing. The software libraries were too diluted, and cimply didnt capture the public imagination.

 

The best selling game on the 2600 was the abysmal port of Pac Man, an arcade game meant to eat coins. But even the best 2600 games - Pitfall, River Raid, Adventure - were short, simple affairs.

 

If Atari had put an emphasis on quality control with its software, and had someone with the talent and vision of Miyamoto designing games with mass appeal meant to be played for weeks and months, not minutes or hours, they never would have gone under.

 

Yuck.

 

 

This might be one of the dumbest comments I've ever read. Yuck, indeed.

Simple short affairs were what arcade games were all about. People at that time wanted arcade games, not some pos puzzle or long winded RPG.

until 84 game consoles tried to be like the arcades. That is what really helped Coleco.

[ataridave]

While it certainly has it's flaws, IMHO, the IGN article was written to demonstrate that the crash was not just due to 2 games released on one console. And for the record, I played the heck out of the 2600 port of Pac-Man when I was a kid, in the early 1980's-as did my Mom, and a friend on our block. I still like it.

 

Well that's something you don't hear every day. But I think that I played the Pac-man port on my friend's Atari when I was 10 or 11 (back in 96 or so...yeah a long time after it actually released ) and didn't think it was too bad. But I guess I didn't really have much of a quality standard either growing up with the SNES and whatnot. Anyway, I hear people mention all the time that they love E.T., but I don't think I've ever heard anyone say they like the Pac-man port. How old were you? Did you play the arcade game a lot?

 

Oh, I was 5 or 6 years old-I'm not sure if I had played the arcade original or not-but if I hadn't, my parents probably would not have picked that game up for my brother and I, because they had no interest in video games. But I can definitely say that I didn't play Pac-Man in the arcades a lot. I didn't get into arcade gaming heavily until 1987.

 

I really think that the 2600 gets compared to other consoles unfairly, on the issue of game quality. Heck, I love my Wii and the average score for Wii games last year at IGN was less then 6.0 out of 10! It's just like any other console; you just have to ignore the poorly-developed games.

Edited January 25, 2009 by dave4shmups

[J.Max]

Some of the comments from the readers are still pretty terrible here though. Case in point:

Why did these consoles and the companies that made them fail? Why did American videogame makers pack it up and go home?

 

The Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Bally Astrocade, the ColecoVision, the Coleco Gemini, the Emerson Arcadia 2001, the Fairchild Channel F System II, Magnavox Odyssey2, Mattel Intellivision, the Tandyvision, the VTech CreatiVision, and the Vectrex - none of those consoles survived past 1984, let alone flourished like the NES did from 1984 to 1994 - a ten year lifespan. Why?

 

Is it because they werent as powerful? Too expensive? Mismanaged and mismarketed? Not enough games? They fragmented the market? No, no, no, no and no.

 

The companies just didnt have their sh*t together in terms of software licensing. The software libraries were too diluted, and cimply didnt capture the public imagination.

 

The best selling game on the 2600 was the abysmal port of Pac Man, an arcade game meant to eat coins. But even the best 2600 games - Pitfall, River Raid, Adventure - were short, simple affairs.

 

If Atari had put an emphasis on quality control with its software, and had someone with the talent and vision of Miyamoto designing games with mass appeal meant to be played for weeks and months, not minutes or hours, they never would have gone under.

 

Yuck.

 

 

This might be one of the dumbest comments I've ever read. Yuck, indeed.

Simple short affairs were what arcade games were all about. People at that time wanted arcade games, not some pos puzzle or long winded RPG.

until 84 game consoles tried to be like the arcades. That is what really helped Coleco.

 

And what really hurt Atari. The 2600 (designed in 1976) wasn't designed to play the types of arcade games popular in 1982. There is a very large difference between something like Pong or Space Invaders and something like Defender (with scrolling and a persistent world). The poor 2600 couldn't keep up, but Atari didn't have the money to invest in a new console. (Especially with the personal computer line and the failed 5200.) The idea of a console "life-cycle" wasn't even in consideration at that point.

 

People wanted a new experience, one closer to the arcade, but Atari couldn't deliver it. Unfortunately, the rest of the industry looked to Atari as the leader and when Atari started to fail, they took EVERYONE with them.

[atarian63]

Some of the comments from the readers are still pretty terrible here though. Case in point:

Why did these consoles and the companies that made them fail? Why did American videogame makers pack it up and go home?

 

The Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Bally Astrocade, the ColecoVision, the Coleco Gemini, the Emerson Arcadia 2001, the Fairchild Channel F System II, Magnavox Odyssey2, Mattel Intellivision, the Tandyvision, the VTech CreatiVision, and the Vectrex - none of those consoles survived past 1984, let alone flourished like the NES did from 1984 to 1994 - a ten year lifespan. Why?

 

Is it because they werent as powerful? Too expensive? Mismanaged and mismarketed? Not enough games? They fragmented the market? No, no, no, no and no.

 

The companies just didnt have their sh*t together in terms of software licensing. The software libraries were too diluted, and cimply didnt capture the public imagination.

 

The best selling game on the 2600 was the abysmal port of Pac Man, an arcade game meant to eat coins. But even the best 2600 games - Pitfall, River Raid, Adventure - were short, simple affairs.

 

If Atari had put an emphasis on quality control with its software, and had someone with the talent and vision of Miyamoto designing games with mass appeal meant to be played for weeks and months, not minutes or hours, they never would have gone under.

 

Yuck.

 

 

This might be one of the dumbest comments I've ever read. Yuck, indeed.

Simple short affairs were what arcade games were all about. People at that time wanted arcade games, not some pos puzzle or long winded RPG.

until 84 game consoles tried to be like the arcades. That is what really helped Coleco.

 

And what really hurt Atari. The 2600 (designed in 1976) wasn't designed to play the types of arcade games popular in 1982. There is a very large difference between something like Pong or Space Invaders and something like Defender (with scrolling and a persistent world). The poor 2600 couldn't keep up, but Atari didn't have the money to invest in a new console. (Especially with the personal computer line and the failed 5200.) The idea of a console "life-cycle" wasn't even in consideration at that point.

 

People wanted a new experience, one closer to the arcade, but Atari couldn't deliver it. Unfortunately, the rest of the industry looked to Atari as the leader and when Atari started to fail, they took EVERYONE with them.

Actually from 79 to 83 Atari had plenty of money and was the king of the industry both at the arcade and at home, 2600 had great programmers who could get the most out of the system. They cheaped it on pacman and some other major titles, that was the mistake. People saw atari and arcades as the same thing or an extension of the same. People were not looking for something different during that time, just more arcade games. Atari cheaped out of these. That was the problem. It's also when coleco found an "In". Atari had it all and was #1 and just let it go..

5200 was quite capable of these games at release and was more powerful than Coleco, they just didn't get the titles and it lacked 2600 compatibility. That was important at the time as parents did not want to lose out on all that they had spent on the 2600.

2600 was like Nintendo in 88, everyone and I mean everyone had one.

Had they not dropped the ball there never would have been a Coleco,NES,C64 etc. Amiga would have been in the bag and would have been a great console instead of a pc.

They did well when they were mostly engineering and really did well once marketing was added to it. The failure was getting rid of engineering and being all marketing. The not even doing that right.

[J.Max]

Some of the comments from the readers are still pretty terrible here though. Case in point:

Why did these consoles and the companies that made them fail? Why did American videogame makers pack it up and go home?

 

The Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Bally Astrocade, the ColecoVision, the Coleco Gemini, the Emerson Arcadia 2001, the Fairchild Channel F System II, Magnavox Odyssey2, Mattel Intellivision, the Tandyvision, the VTech CreatiVision, and the Vectrex - none of those consoles survived past 1984, let alone flourished like the NES did from 1984 to 1994 - a ten year lifespan. Why?

 

Is it because they werent as powerful? Too expensive? Mismanaged and mismarketed? Not enough games? They fragmented the market? No, no, no, no and no.

 

The companies just didnt have their sh*t together in terms of software licensing. The software libraries were too diluted, and cimply didnt capture the public imagination.

 

The best selling game on the 2600 was the abysmal port of Pac Man, an arcade game meant to eat coins. But even the best 2600 games - Pitfall, River Raid, Adventure - were short, simple affairs.

 

If Atari had put an emphasis on quality control with its software, and had someone with the talent and vision of Miyamoto designing games with mass appeal meant to be played for weeks and months, not minutes or hours, they never would have gone under.

 

Yuck.

 

 

This might be one of the dumbest comments I've ever read. Yuck, indeed.

Simple short affairs were what arcade games were all about. People at that time wanted arcade games, not some pos puzzle or long winded RPG.

until 84 game consoles tried to be like the arcades. That is what really helped Coleco.

 

And what really hurt Atari. The 2600 (designed in 1976) wasn't designed to play the types of arcade games popular in 1982. There is a very large difference between something like Pong or Space Invaders and something like Defender (with scrolling and a persistent world). The poor 2600 couldn't keep up, but Atari didn't have the money to invest in a new console. (Especially with the personal computer line and the failed 5200.) The idea of a console "life-cycle" wasn't even in consideration at that point.

 

People wanted a new experience, one closer to the arcade, but Atari couldn't deliver it. Unfortunately, the rest of the industry looked to Atari as the leader and when Atari started to fail, they took EVERYONE with them.

Actually from 79 to 83 Atari had plenty of money and was the king of the industry both at the arcade and at home, 2600 had great programmers who could get the most out of the system. They cheaped it on pacman and some other major titles, that was the mistake. People saw atari and arcades as the same thing or an extension of the same. People were not looking for something different during that time, just more arcade games. Atari cheaped out of these. That was the problem. It's also when coleco found an "In". Atari had it all and was #1 and just let it go..

5200 was quite capable of these games at release and was more powerful than Coleco, they just didn't get the titles and it lacked 2600 compatibility. That was important at the time as parents did not want to lose out on all that they had spent on the 2600.

2600 was like Nintendo in 88, everyone and I mean everyone had one.

Had they not dropped the ball there never would have been a Coleco,NES,C64 etc. Amiga would have been in the bag and would have been a great console instead of a pc.

They did well when they were mostly engineering and really did well once marketing was added to it. The failure was getting rid of engineering and being all marketing. The not even doing that right.

 

The 5200 was a massive failure, mostly because of its controller. I agree about the backwards compatibility though.

 

You also have to realize that the crash has happened every single time that a new form of media has ever been invented. The conditions in 1983 were actually very similar to what happened with the internet bubble of 1998-99:

 

1. New industries start appearing, and they are seen as a fad by most "major" companies.

 

2. Said companies work in a mad rush to take advantage of said "fad".

 

3. Smaller groups also start trying to come up with the next big thing and none of them succeed, but they also push more garbage out there.

 

4. The smaller companies begin to fail; this is seen by the major companies as the fad being over so they pull money out.

 

5. The whole thing begins to burst.

 

6. The companies that did things right to begin with keep going and eventually rebuild the industry with a new, more profitable model.

[Stan]

To start, I didn't get to read through everything yet. This is coming from someone who lived through that period and was around for the early arcade boom and such. In my opinion, it's pretty tough to gauge exactly what kind of crash happened depending on how you look at it. I'd say a general 'video game crash' is incorrect, because most people just switched to playing games on personal computers because they could do other things with them as well. This led to booms in games such as the King's Quest series and Ultima, which were quite popular. Generally, I'd say that most people who actually worked in the industry will have mixed opinions. I've talked to some programmers that say there wasn't a crash, and then producers who say there was definitely one. It depends how you look at it. If you mean consoles, then yeah, there was, sort of, a crash, but it pretty quickly recovered if you compare it to actual economic crashes that have happened in history. If you're talking about only games, I'd say that it pretty much moved to PCs for a short while and then back to consoles, but it's really tough unless you specify what you mean by the 'crash.'

[atarian63]

Some of the comments from the readers are still pretty terrible here though. Case in point:

Why did these consoles and the companies that made them fail? Why did American videogame makers pack it up and go home?

 

The Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Bally Astrocade, the ColecoVision, the Coleco Gemini, the Emerson Arcadia 2001, the Fairchild Channel F System II, Magnavox Odyssey2, Mattel Intellivision, the Tandyvision, the VTech CreatiVision, and the Vectrex - none of those consoles survived past 1984, let alone flourished like the NES did from 1984 to 1994 - a ten year lifespan. Why?

 

Is it because they werent as powerful? Too expensive? Mismanaged and mismarketed? Not enough games? They fragmented the market? No, no, no, no and no.

 

The companies just didnt have their sh*t together in terms of software licensing. The software libraries were too diluted, and cimply didnt capture the public imagination.

 

The best selling game on the 2600 was the abysmal port of Pac Man, an arcade game meant to eat coins. But even the best 2600 games - Pitfall, River Raid, Adventure - were short, simple affairs.

 

If Atari had put an emphasis on quality control with its software, and had someone with the talent and vision of Miyamoto designing games with mass appeal meant to be played for weeks and months, not minutes or hours, they never would have gone under.

 

Yuck.

 

 

This might be one of the dumbest comments I've ever read. Yuck, indeed.

Simple short affairs were what arcade games were all about. People at that time wanted arcade games, not some pos puzzle or long winded RPG.

until 84 game consoles tried to be like the arcades. That is what really helped Coleco.

 

And what really hurt Atari. The 2600 (designed in 1976) wasn't designed to play the types of arcade games popular in 1982. There is a very large difference between something like Pong or Space Invaders and something like Defender (with scrolling and a persistent world). The poor 2600 couldn't keep up, but Atari didn't have the money to invest in a new console. (Especially with the personal computer line and the failed 5200.) The idea of a console "life-cycle" wasn't even in consideration at that point.

 

People wanted a new experience, one closer to the arcade, but Atari couldn't deliver it. Unfortunately, the rest of the industry looked to Atari as the leader and when Atari started to fail, they took EVERYONE with them.

Actually from 79 to 83 Atari had plenty of money and was the king of the industry both at the arcade and at home, 2600 had great programmers who could get the most out of the system. They cheaped it on pacman and some other major titles, that was the mistake. People saw atari and arcades as the same thing or an extension of the same. People were not looking for something different during that time, just more arcade games. Atari cheaped out of these. That was the problem. It's also when coleco found an "In". Atari had it all and was #1 and just let it go..

5200 was quite capable of these games at release and was more powerful than Coleco, they just didn't get the titles and it lacked 2600 compatibility. That was important at the time as parents did not want to lose out on all that they had spent on the 2600.

2600 was like Nintendo in 88, everyone and I mean everyone had one.

Had they not dropped the ball there never would have been a Coleco,NES,C64 etc. Amiga would have been in the bag and would have been a great console instead of a pc.

They did well when they were mostly engineering and really did well once marketing was added to it. The failure was getting rid of engineering and being all marketing. The not even doing that right.

 

The 5200 was a massive failure, mostly because of its controller. I agree about the backwards compatibility though.

 

You also have to realize that the crash has happened every single time that a new form of media has ever been invented. The conditions in 1983 were actually very similar to what happened with the internet bubble of 1998-99:

 

1. New industries start appearing, and they are seen as a fad by most "major" companies.

 

2. Said companies work in a mad rush to take advantage of said "fad".

 

3. Smaller groups also start trying to come up with the next big thing and none of them succeed, but they also push more garbage out there.

 

4. The smaller companies begin to fail; this is seen by the major companies as the fad being over so they pull money out.

 

5. The whole thing begins to burst.

 

6. The companies that did things right to begin with keep going and eventually rebuild the industry with a new, more profitable model.

That's a fair assessment.

[atarian63]

To start, I didn't get to read through everything yet. This is coming from someone who lived through that period and was around for the early arcade boom and such. In my opinion, it's pretty tough to gauge exactly what kind of crash happened depending on how you look at it. I'd say a general 'video game crash' is incorrect, because most people just switched to playing games on personal computers because they could do other things with them as well. This led to booms in games such as the King's Quest series and Ultima, which were quite popular. Generally, I'd say that most people who actually worked in the industry will have mixed opinions. I've talked to some programmers that say there wasn't a crash, and then producers who say there was definitely one. It depends how you look at it. If you mean consoles, then yeah, there was, sort of, a crash, but it pretty quickly recovered if you compare it to actual economic crashes that have happened in history. If you're talking about only games, I'd say that it pretty much moved to PCs for a short while and then back to consoles, but it's really tough unless you specify what you mean by the 'crash.'

PC's had one advantage though not tons of it early on. Piracy. Pretty appealing back in those days to get games for free.

[Nukey Shay]

...and one major drawback...configuration. That may have added to the swing back to consoles a bit.

[jahfish]

it's funny that everyone talks about systems but not about the marketing machinery behind the games and consoles ....

 

The reason why consoles became cheap is because companies like atari made a lot more cash on cartridges than on consoles, and by facilitating people to buy a console they openend up the doors for the cartridge business. this is how nowadays computer companies make money with inkjet printers, often as expensive as 1 to 2 original refill sets.

 

ET was surely part of the reasons why the market crashed, but not so much because of the gameplay, but because warner payed about 20 millions dollars in licences (afaik) and produced more carts than consoles existed ... but that type of stuff had been going on for a while: warner tried to make a video game out of every hit movie they made, which in the end proved to be a mistake.