what innovations has nintendo really brought the industry?

[Flojomojo]

Longevity. Like this thread.

[thetick1]

They brought gaming back to the mainstream numerous times .. over and over again.

[almightytodd]

...and the 2019 necro-bump award goes to...

 

(I'm not knocking it, mind you. Much better to necro-bump than to start a new thread that has already been hashed and re-hashed over the years...)

[mbd30]

Was Mach Rider the first vehicle combat game? It came out before RoadBlasters.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_Rider

[lushgirl_80]

I feel we're definitely in the second golden age of the NES. The first was during the 1986-1989 era,and now during 2016-2019 it seems more popular now than ever before!!! Thanks to the NES Classic and Switch obviously.

 

 

As far as innovations goes, I'd say the NES gave gaming more depth with the ability to finish the game and see an "ending" that had more elaborate storylines than what came before it,and NES raised the bar as far as game music goes. It seems they learned from the mistakes Atari made with the 5200,and just totally improved on that too.

[thetick1]

Was Mach Rider the first vehicle combat game? It came out before RoadBlasters.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_Rider

 

Far from it...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_Hunter

[+save2600]

I have fond memories of playing NES, SNES and even a little N64 BITD. But the consoles, gimmicks and much of their software since? Too "innovative" for me I guess as they didn't hold my attention for long. Especially the train wreck that was the Wii-U. The Switch marks the first Nintendo console I'm taking a hard pass on, and with the direction modern gaming has gone, good riddance!

[mbd30]

 

Far from it...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_Hunter

 

I should have clarified. I meant vehicle combat games with a Pole Position style third person perspective and not top down like Spy Hunter. I know that there were top down vehicle combat games before Mach Rider.

[Flojomojo]

Hard to believe that Roadblasters (yay!) came out the same year as Spy Hunter II (boo!)

[thetick1]

Hard to believe that Roadblasters (yay!) came out the same year as Spy Hunter II (boo!)

Spy Hunter II was absolutely horrible. A few years back I played it on MAME for about 2 minutes and felt like I had to vomit. It is probably the worst arcade game I ever played. No wonder it was never released to the arcades!

 

Note I'm a big fan of the Spy Hunter and Turbo arcade games!

Edited February 11, 2019 by thetick1

[high voltage]

NES raised the bar as far as game music goes.

 

That was the C64, especially from UK programmers

Edited February 11, 2019 by high voltage

[high voltage]

 

As far as innovations goes, I'd say the NES gave gaming more depth with the ability to finish the game and see an "ending" that had more elaborate storylines than what came before it

 

Pitfall 2 on VCS

[lushgirl_80]

 

That was the C64, especially from UK programmers

 

Let me make this clear,I did not provide my views to argue with anyone. I didn't own a C64 so it's not relevant to me the same way as the NES is.

 

 

 

Pitfall 2 on VCS

 

Good point,and I thought of that one already as actually I played that game quite alot before the NES was released when I was little. I even interviewed David Crane on my show so I am familiar with that in my sleep. When the NES came out though,I have to say games like Metroid and Legend of Zelda seemed to raise the bar higher than what Pitfall 2 already did.

 

That's just my feelings and my views are not meant again to stir an argument. Whatever lol,I'm just here to have fun.

[Flojomojo]

Spy Hunter II was absolutely horrible. A few years back I played it on MAME for about 2 minutes and felt like I had to vomit. It is probably the worst arcade game I ever played. No wonder it was never released to the arcades!

 

Note I'm a big fan of the Spy Hunter and Turbo arcade games!

Do you mean never got a home port? Because it was in arcades, and I remember seeing it. Yeah, it's pisspoor.

https://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9743

 

Here's a sweet Spy Hunter remake for modern PCs. I like it a lot. "Highway Pursuit"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Pursuit

[mr_me]

In terms of content, falling rom prices is what raised the bar. Programmers were really handcuffed by tiny cartridge sizes in the early 1980s. Pitfall ii on the atari 2600 is 8k, Treasure of Tarmin on intellivision is 8k, Alkazar on colecovision is 16k, Legend of Zelda is 128k.

 

I like games with endings. Unfortunately arcades games ruled in the early 1980s and also sold consoles and cartridges including nintendos in japan. Intellivision had plenty of games with endings from the beginning. Tower of Mystery for intellivision would have been the first cartridge with a save game feature in 1984 but it wasn't released due to the crash.

Edited February 11, 2019 by mr_me

[CatPix]

Programmers were handcuffed by everything

Not only size, but display size, colo limitations, sounds limitation, CPU limitations...

Nintendo introduced saves with the Famicom Disk System; using a (rather crappy) floppy also gave them much more space all of a sudden (112Ko max - but you could programs games to spawn over more than one floppy).

Nintendo's stroke of genius to me, in that era, was to plan early on to expand their console from the cardridges. No more accessory to buy that the customer might or might not own, no fear of game programmers only programming for the base system because "customers might not own your expansion module".

This gave the NES a clear advantage by allowing it to be upgraded without relying on external modules, the major exception being the Disk System; although in Japan, by making it a rewritable system, it gave it an advantage that most expansions always lacked. And also, supporting it by making great games exclusive to it (Legend of Zelda, Castlevania I and II, Metroid were released on cart in Japan only around 1993 and 94. Mostly because they didn't wanted to keep supporting the FDS at this point).

 

That point was probably brought at some point in the topic, tho.

Edited February 11, 2019 by CatPix

[mr_me]

Technically, it really doesn't matter if the add-on hardware is in a module or the cartridge. Except that add-ons don't sell. Again by 1984/85 ram and processors became inexpensive enough to include in each catridge. Nintendo still managed to overcharge their customers for cartridges.

Edited February 11, 2019 by mr_me

[youxia]

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe....

 

 

[CatPix]

Except that modding and expanding your computer was more part of the whole "computer" deal. And in computers too, many games would be stuck in the "let's keep compatible" mind.

 

How many games support a game pad or stick with more than one button? At some point, somebody should have stepped in, like the MSX, and said "Stop that Atari joystick BS".

Atari did.. with the STE. in 1988. 5 years after the 4 buttons Famicom pad. hell, 5 years after the MSX's 2 buttons pad.

 

How many Atari 8 bits games need more than 64 k of RAM?

 

Let's not even talk about the Amiga and all the Frankenstein add-on boards that tried to hide the fact that the Amiga platform was stuck with the need for original Amiga 1000 backward compatibility.

 

And I like comptuers as much as consoles. But save from being more moddable today with great tools and such, they didn't do much better than consoles on that regard.

Edited February 11, 2019 by CatPix

[Flojomojo]

A few years ago, I made a bit of an effort to learn about and appreciate the Amiga. I was gobsmacked to learn it only supported one action button. I figured it was a super-advanced arcade type thing, like the Genesis, which has a lot of the same games.

 

They all look like game consoles to me nowadays, especially the early Atari computers with their cartridges and very familiar software titles.

[pacman000]

But computers have BASIC! You can make your own games!

 

10 PRINT "You are standing in a forest."

20 INPUT C$

30 IF C$ = "North" THEN PRINT "You were attacked by a bear. Game Over." Else "You found your way out of the forest. You Win!"

40 END

[mr_me]

That's the problem when you don't include a game controller out of the box. Developers will program for the lowest common denominator, the one button eight-way controller. Amigas do support more than one button, so does the atari 2600. The IBM PC supported analog controllers with four buttons but sports game were 8-way, double dragon was a one button game.

[CatPix]

And that's what I meant with Nintendo including RAM and mappers and such in the carts rather than in their console and making the Famicom Disk System, then a FDS II, then a FDS III, etc.

 

The only successfull "pilling add-on" was the PC-Engine, which made the CD-ROM², and then, expanded it with more ram. then even more RAM! And by the end of the system life, half of the system they sold were Cd-based. It's probably the best example of a successful add-on sale.

No one came close to do that. Maybe the FDS did, although of course at some point around 1988, carts started to pack more stuff than the FDS so it was doomed to slow down and die.

When Nintendo made the N64 with the Expansion Pack, they had to package the Expansion Pack with the games using it (of which there are... 4 that require it?) - as opposed to game that support it but can run without it) to sell it, and that was in 1999; I mean that the first game requiring it was in 1999, if I remember right.

Edited February 11, 2019 by CatPix

[Punisher5.0]

And that's what I meant with Nintendo including RAM and mappers and such in the carts rather than in their console and making the Famicom Disk System, then a FDS II, then a FDS III, etc.

 

The only successfull "pilling add-on" was the PC-Engine, which made the CD-ROM², and then, expanded it with more ram. then even more RAM! And by the end of the system life, half of the system they sold were Cd-based. It's probably the best example of a successful add-on sale.

No one came clsoe to do that. Maybe the FDS did, although of course at some point around 1988, carts started to pack more stuff than the FDS so it was doomed to slow down and die.

When Nintendo made the N64 with the Expansion Pack, they had to package the Expansion Pack with the games using it (of which there are... 4 that require it?) - as opposed to game that support it but can run without it) to sell it, and that was in 1999; I mean that the first game requiring it was in 1999, if I remember right.

In the US it came with DK64 only IIRC (as far included with a game). It was crazy to learn not too long ago that it wasn't really needed for the game. Supposedly there was a flaw in the games code and this was their solution.

[Flojomojo]

When Nintendo made the N64 with the Expansion Pack, they had to package the Expansion Pack with the games using it (of which there are... 4 that require it?) - as opposed to game that support it but can run without it) to sell it, and that was in 1999; I mean that the first game requiring it was in 1999, if I remember right.

 

It was sold separately for US$30. Only a few games NEED it (Majora, DK64 and Perfect Dark), but there's a bunch of games that are enhanced with it ... or at least trade up to higher resolution graphics at a slower framerate.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expansion_Pak_(NUS-007)

 

It was also packed into the colorful "iMac" versions of the console.