Is it fact that Nintendo Saved Gaming?

[Andromeda Stardust]

NOA had to work very, very hard to make the NES a success, remember Nintendos AVS flopped twice, and retailers didn't want the NES either.

Then NOA came up with a trick to get the NES into stores, retailers didn.t have to pay anything for 90 days, and if nothing was sold it could be returned, also NOA set up the shop display for free.

Now, free is always good, of course retailers lapped it up, it was a failsafe deal.

The riskiest bets always have the biggest payoffs. Nintendo knew they had a winning hand. They just had to figure out a way to get the industry to call their bluff.

[high voltage]

And a helping hand (eg funds) from Nintendo Japan perhaps....

 

 

 

 

Colecovision, another console which turned into a computer pre-NES

Edited December 11, 2013 by high voltage

[CatPix]

Even the 1292 Advanced Video Programmable System from 1976 received a computer add-on, the Hobby Module.

 

I have found only one pic, and no information on the release date as well.

 

Given the weak capabilities of the system and the very unusual processor, and the lack of a proper keyboard (the overlays fit on both 12 keys joypads) this was probably the most useless Computer module ever made.

Edited December 11, 2013 by CatPix

[+boxpressed]

I think I just became a virgin again by reading this whole thread.

[+Random Terrain]

I think I just became a virgin again by reading this whole thread.

 

The power of Nintendo can do anything.

[108 Stars]

No one was producing consoles for the U.S. market, so it was in fact dead here. The major retailers were firmly in "once bitten, twice shy" mode, which is why Nintendo had to come up with a novel approach to convince them that they wouldn't get burned again.

There was still the Intellivision. It may have been a small market, but it continued to be sold by INTV Corp.

 

This may or may not be true (and it is irrelevant, as I mentioned in my previous post). Nintendo not only managed to package their console in a way that retailers would accept in the aftermath of being hung out to dry by the previous console fiasco, but they also came up with the ultimate "killer app" for it (SMB). The deck was highly stacked against anyone looking to introduce a console to the U.S. market in the mid 1980s, and it is far from inevitable that someone else would have pulled it off the way that Nintendo did. NES led to Genesis which led to SNES which led to PlayStation which led to N64, and so on. It had enough impact to kick off a lasting, long-term industry/market, as opposed to the more faddish nature of the console industry/market before it.

Yet I don't think it is irrelevant. There's a difference between a heroic deed only one could have pulled off and a wealth of exciting ideas from dozens of developers that one system happened to be able to utilize. It doesn't change that the NES was the major force that did it in the end, but I don't think that great games would not have found their way to NA without it. It could have been on home computers or another system. Retailers may have been careful, but the US is the prime example of a market where clever entrepreneurs always take a chance when they see something hot, and Nintendo or not, the new generation of games was something radically different from the old. Even if gaming would have switched to home computers, it would still have been saved. The players go where the games are, and had they been on inexpensive computers in the states, then that would have been where gaming was saved.

 

Yes, I believe the comeback of games in NA was inevitable.

[godslabrat]

The players go where the games are, and had they been on inexpensive computers in the states, then that would have been where gaming was saved.

 

Yes, I believe the comeback of games in NA was inevitable.

I completely agree that the comeback was inevitable. I will contend, however, that the NES made the comeback happen sooner and with higher-quality titles than would have otherwise occurred.

[desiv]

No one was producing consoles for the U.S. market, so it was in fact dead here.

It looks like Coleco was producing the Colecovision till sometime in 85 and Intellivision and Atari (5200) till 84.

The 7800 was initially released in 84, so it was "available." (In that Atari could have pushed it harder; and "might" have if there was no NES, who knows?????? Not saying that would have happened tho.)

 

That's the problem with pulling data from Wikipedia.

While they said this: All other North American game consoles were discontinued by 1984.

They also said: ultimately withdrawing from the video game market by the end of the summer of 1985.[12][13] The ColecoVision was officially discontinued by October 1985.

 

:-)

 

desiv

Edited December 11, 2013 by desiv

[108 Stars]

I completely agree that the comeback was inevitable. I will contend, however, that the NES made the comeback happen sooner and with higher-quality titles than would have otherwise occurred.

I won't contest that. With Nintendo themselves being one major source of great software and one source of inspiration for others (not the only one, mind you) there would of course have been less quality software without them.

[CatPix]

If you look in Japan (and Europe to an extend) many Konami titles were released on the MSX computers (Which, because it was conceived by Microsoft, was not pushed to be sold in the USA as they also made a deal with IBM to provide MS-DOS on their computers).

Most notably, the first Metal Gear game and the first Castlevania are MSX-2 games. And of course there was the 68000 computers in Japan providing high qualit arcade adaptations; so except for SMB, most famous games were already on other platforms. Nintendo pulled them to the NES to get more success, but they existed previously.

[MaximRecoil]

There was still the Intellivision. It may have been a small market, but it continued to be sold by INTV Corp.

Discontinued January 1984^[1][2][3][4]

 

Yet I don't think it is irrelevant.

It is in fact irrelevant to the question of who did what, because "what ifs" don't change the fact of who historically did what, thus they don't affect the answer to the question, thus they are irrelevant. I don't mind discussing the "what ifs" obviously (given that I have been doing so all along), but they are still ultimately irrelevant.

 

There's a difference between a heroic deed only one could have pulled off and a wealth of exciting ideas from dozens of developers that one system happened to be able to utilize. It doesn't change that the NES was the major force that did it in the end, but I don't think that great games would not have found their way to NA without it. It could have been on home computers or another system. Retailers may have been careful, but the US is the prime example of a market where clever entrepreneurs always take a chance when they see something hot, and Nintendo or not, the new generation of games was something radically different from the old. Even if gaming would have switched to home computers, it would still have been saved. The players go where the games are, and had they been on inexpensive computers in the states, then that would have been where gaming was saved.

 

Yes, I believe the comeback of games in NA was inevitable.

Definitely not inevitable. There are way too many unknowns (unknowns that are impossible for anyone to ever know, no less, considering it involves a hypothetical alternate timeline) for it to have been anywhere near inevitable.

 

 

It looks like Coleco was producing the Colecovision till sometime in 85 and Intellivision and Atari (5200) till 84.

The 7800 was initially released in 84, so it was "available." (In that Atari could have pushed it harder; and "might" have if there was no NES, who knows?????? Not saying that would have happened tho.)

 

That's the problem with pulling data from Wikipedia.

While they said this: All other North American game consoles were discontinued by 1984.

They also said: ultimately withdrawing from the video game market by the end of the summer of 1985.[12][13] The ColecoVision was officially discontinued by October 1985.

Even though I use Wikipedia all the time, I didn't "pull data" from there in this case; I was going from my memories of the mid-1980s. There was nothing on the shelves aside from deeply discounted old stock that stores were trying to get rid of.

 

The Atari 7800 was released in a small quantity in one part of one state in 1984. Production was not ongoing and most of the already produced units sat in warehouses and were used for the nationwide release in 1986.

 

The ColecoVision was discontinued even before the NES' initial limited test-market releases, and over a year before the NES' nationwide release in September of '86. My cousin wanted to trade me his ColecoVision for my Atari 2600 in '85 on the basis that he hadn't been able to find any new games for it for a while, and new 2600 games were still on some store shelves.

 

From Wikipedia:

 

Despite the Famicom having sold more than 2.5 million units of the Famicom in Japan by the beginning of 1985, the American video game press was skeptical that the console could have any success in North America, with the March 1985 issue of Electronic Games magazine stating that "the videogame market in America has virtually disappeared" and that "this could be a miscalculation on Nintendo's part."^[12] Roger Buoy of Mindscape allegedly said that year, "Hasn't anyone told them that the videogame industry is dead?"^[13]

Edited December 11, 2013 by MaximRecoil

[desiv]

Yes, but Nintendo didn't create the market (that people thought wasn't there).

They revived and expanded it.. The industry was worried that the market was gone..

They were afraid that it had burned itself out and Nintendo was fighting a losing battle..

 

They were WRONG.. The market WAS still there, just waiting for new (fresh) product.

A LOT of the people who bought the NES were the same people who had other (Atari/Coleco/Intelli) systems.

 

It just so happened that the people who stepped up (Nintendo) did it in a big way!!!

Right company at the right time.. Perfect alignment..

 

That market was there and waiting. If Nintendo hadn't done it, it still would have happened (IMHO).

Just not as quickly or smoothly as it did...

It's actually kind of surprising how badly they misread the market... Looking back, how could anyone have thought that the market was dead and no one would want to play good/new video games on a console anymore??? It should have been obvious that the market was still there. But I suppose when you are looking at the damage that was done, it's easy not to step back and see the big picture. Nintendo was the first to say "People aren't tired of console gaming; they are just tired of old/crap console gaming." :-)

 

desiv

Edited December 11, 2013 by desiv

[108 Stars]

MaximRecoil

 

It doesn't matter much to me whether system production was discontinued or not. The market was not dead, sales of the Intellivison did not stop even if most retailers wouldn't stock it anymore. There was at most a few months of a gap between Mattel discontinueing it and the dawn of the INTV Corp. Then it was sold through mail-order etc. A market does not suddenly vanish. Kids still play the games, even if there are no new ones. I played the 2600Jr in 1988 and wouldn't know the games were old. Parents buy videogames for their kids if they are found on the bargain bin. With the aprupt decrease in demand there was no need for new production for the manufacturers, but I am pretty sure you could still buy the old stock since it would not make sense to destroy all. That does not equal a dead market for me, but a severely wounded.

 

There is nothing "definite" about your opinion on all of this as obviously we disagree and it is all speculation. If there was a definite answer this thread would have died on page 1.

Edited December 11, 2013 by 108 Stars

[MaximRecoil]

Yes, but Nintendo didn't create the market (that people thought wasn't there).

They revived and expanded it.. The industry was worried that the market was gone..

They were afraid that it had burned itself out and Nintendo was fighting a losing battle..

 

They were WRONG.. The market WAS still there, just waiting for new (fresh) product.

A LOT of the people who bought the NES were the same people who had other (Atari/Coleco/Intelli) systems.

 

It just so happened that the people who stepped up (Nintendo) did it in a big way!!!

Right company at the right time.. Perfect alignment..

 

That market was there and waiting. If Nintendo hadn't done it, it still would have happened (IMHO).

Just not as quickly or smoothly as it did...

It's actually kind of surprising how badly they misread the market... Looking back, how could anyone have thought that the market was dead and no one would want to play good/new video games on a console anymore??? It should have been obvious that the market was still there. But I suppose when you are looking at the damage that was done, it's easy not to step back and see the big picture. Nintendo was the first to say "People aren't tired of console gaming; they are just tired of old/crap console gaming." :-)

 

desiv

 

This is turning into a game of semantics.

 

MaximRecoil

 

It doesn't matter much to me whether system production was discontinued or not. The market was not dead, sales of the Intellivison did not stop even if most retailers wouldn't stock it anymore. There was at most a few months of a gap between Mattel discontinueing it and the dawn of the INTV Corp. Then it was sold through mail-order etc. A market does not suddenly vanish. Kids still play the games, even if there are no new ones. I played the 2600Jr in 1988 and wouldn't know the games were old. Parents buy videogames for their kids if they are found on the bargain bin. With the aprupt decrease in demand there was no need for new production for the manufacturers, but I am pretty sure you could still buy the old stock since it would not make sense to destroy all. That does not equal a dead market for me, but a severely wounded.

 

There is nothing "definite" about your opinion on all of this as obviously we disagree and it is all speculation. If there was a definite answer this thread would have died on page 1.

 

And more semantics.

 

By the way, the thing which I said was "definite" is in fact definite; it does not pertain to my opinion, it pertains to the factual definition of the word "inevitable". It isn't possible to know that something was inevitable when there are so many unknowns. You need a certain amount of "knowns" before you can say something is inevitable. For example, you could say that for an ordinary passenger car that hits a brick wall head-on at 100 MPH, damage is inevitable, because that is simply a matter of physics. On the other hand, when talking about hypothetical situations involving people making decisions, coming up with ideas, and so on, inevitability goes out the window. For example, you can't say that because someone is driving a car at 100 MPH and there is a brick wall in the vicinity, that it is inevitable that he will hit it, thus damaging his car.

 

With regard to the semantics:

 

Whether a market and industry is dead or "mostly dead" doesn't make a meaningful difference, except in The Princess Bride.

 

There is no meaningful difference between a dead market and a market that has little to no interest in what already exists and is waiting for something new and different to come along. To say there is a difference is to say that there is no such thing as a dead market for anything, because there is always the potential for someone to come up with something different enough to revive interest in that particular category.

Edited December 11, 2013 by MaximRecoil

[Rex Dart]

Well, six pages in & the only thing we've decided is that those three magic words (N******* S**** G*****) are pure trollbait on these forums

[desiv]

There is no meaningful difference between a dead market and a market that has little to no interest in what already exists and is waiting for something new and different to come along.

But there isn't always a potential audience..

Some markets do die... And that's what people have said about the crash. That it killed the market..

But it didn't.

You never had people who said "Well, console gaming was fun, but now it's dead and I have no interest in it anymore.." (Well, there was probably someone.. )

 

Instead, you had people that were tired of the current market and didn't see a reason to buy new hardware or more games for their existing systems.

 

 

It's a variation on the basic question of supply and demand.

In this case, the demand did NOT go away. People didn't stop buying games because they didn't want to game on consoles anymore.

They stopped buying because they didn't want to buy what was being supplied.

 

There was plenty of supply, but it wasn't the right supply FOR the demand.

 

Once you had someone (anyone, in this case it was Nintendo) who ACTUALLY provided a supply that matched the actual demand, people bought.

 

Is a lot of this semantics, yes. But a lot of ANY discussion is semantics, so that's not a big deal.

 

desiv

Edited December 11, 2013 by desiv

[MaximRecoil]

But there isn't always a potential audience..

Some markets do die...

Yes, there is always a potential "audience". There is no category of product on Earth that all people have an inherent aversion to, no matter which form it takes. By your own reasoning, no market has ever died. Also by the "dead" vs. "mostly dead" distinction line of reasoning, it can also be said that pretty much no market is dead. For example, by that reasoning the market for e.g. the RCA Studio II and its games isn't dead, because there are people on this very forum interested in it.

 

And that's what people have said about the crash. That it killed the market..

But it didn't.

The market dying was the crash.

 

You never had people who said "Well, console gaming was fun, but now it's dead and I have no interest in it anymore.." (Well, there was probably someone.. )

 

Instead, you had people that were tired of the current market and didn't see a reason to buy new hardware or more games for their existing systems.

There is no meaningful difference between those two things.

 

It's a variation on the basic question of supply and demand.

In this case, the demand did NOT go away. People didn't stop buying games because they didn't want to game on consoles anymore.

They stopped buying because they didn't want to buy what was being supplied.

 

There was plenty of supply, but it wasn't the right supply FOR the demand.

 

Once you had someone (anyone, in this case it was Nintendo) who ACTUALLY provided a supply that matched the actual demand, people bought.

 

Is a lot of this semantics, yes. But a lot of ANY discussion is semantics, so that's not a big deal.

Yes, it is indeed "semantics", and the problem with "semantics" in this context is that it focuses on differences in wording/phrasing that do not make a meaningful difference with regard to the question at hand.

[CatPix]

I think someone had given a reasonable explanation somewhere.

 

One explanation is, in the USA, console gaming was considered a toy product, and so, was more like a fade than a "real thing". No wonder why Mattel went in.

No wonder why Bally advertised the Professional Arcade as a computer and was selling it though mail order and in computer shops only (mainly?).

 

When the US market started to crumble on itself, everyone left because "we're done, we chewed this video game thingie to the bone, and now we can thow it away".

Games companies like Mindscape probably didn't mean that the video game industry was dead, they more probabl wanted to say "console video gaming is dead, now everyone moves to computers".

 

You can take a look on the Japanese market and European market. Japan turned to "expensive" computers, because consoles before the Famicom couldn't display kanjis. So making "complex" games was difficult, so the need for powerful machines was high.

 

In Europe.. things vary greatly, but overall, sales were handled by local represantents, which sometime had nothing to work with.

 

It resulted in various success for consoles; as Philips was a big company well established, the O² (Videopac) sold way better than in the US. The 2600 sold well but doesn't retain any kind of cult status, and was mostly bough on the "low price" reason.

Computer growed big because they were made by local companies, or/and European companies; people were more convinced of the computer being useful to kids. Believe it or not, there was shows on TV that learned kids to code BASIC games on TV!

 

Also the nice thing was that game producer could use the computer to create their games.

 

Local-made consoles like the Radofin 1292 APVS had game programmed internally only... and they reflect well how was video gaming perceived at the time. Pulling aside your sports game carts, the most common carts are Chess, Checkers, and Maths/Quizz/etc games, and your usual "space invaders and breakout clones"

The "crash" of US game consoles only convinced people to stick on computers. Not that it was felt that much, but it only made consoles vanishing from the shelves.

 

Also, computer allowed for "local" games. Sure, most are not know and it give the false impression that the computer European market was weak, but really, how can a French song based game can sold outside France? Yet French retrogamers knows about Billy La Banlieue... At the time, kids where not learning english as early as they do now, so having english only games was also an issue. No so much on Space Invaders for sure, but on a RTS game, or a text input/adventure game, or a point'n'click, it's a biggger obstacle.

Also, computers were not that expensive.

I mean, in 1982 in France, you could buy a Videopac for 989 Francs, a ZX Spectrum for 1000 Francs, and an Atari 2600 for 1700 Francs. Though choice, expecially when looking after for games, they cost like 200F for Atari 2600 and 30F for a Spectrum game.

Yeah, the initial price for a computer was high (when you wanted something a bit more advanced than a Spectrum), but games were dirt cheap. (and copying them was easy as hell).

Edited December 11, 2013 by CatPix

[desiv]

Yes, there is always a potential "audience".

No, there isn't. Not realistically...

There is no category of product on Earth that all people have an inherent aversion to, no matter which form it takes.

Yes, there are...

I mean, you could take it to extreme's and say things like "a market for rebreathers for humans filled with sulfuric acid."

Of course, that would be silly..

 

It would be just as silly to go to the other extreme "there is always a potential audience." Because realistically, there are some things there are no "real" markets for... By "real market" I am making the assumption that we have some baselines, such as a market the size needed to maintain a video game industry for the purpose of this discussion. I kind of assumed we all agreed on that..

Yes, there are always tiny markets. There is a market now for multicarts for these old systems, but it's not the type of market we are talking about to maintain console sales...

 

By your own reasoning, no market has ever died.

As I specifically said "some markets do die," I'm not sure how you come by that.

And that is by "your own reasoning," not mine. I specifically said the opposite of that...

 

If your definition of semantics is that you consider a market of the size of Studio II games to be a valid market for this discussion (where we are talking about a market for video game consoles in the 80's), then I'd maintain while it's technically semantics, its just flat out silly...

 

Have a good one..

 

desiv

[gamecat80]

I was just a little kid when the "North American Video Game Crash of 1983-1984" happened, so I was too young to notice. However, my older brother would play Atari with one of the kids up the street around that time. My mom bought us a new C64 around 1986 -- our first game system. Couple years later we bought a new NES.

I understand that the Commodore 64 came out around the same time as the ColecoVision and Atari 5200 (1982) and sold until the early 90s? So computers weathered the "NA videogame crash" better than the consoles, even if the market was smaller. Kids were still playing their old systems/games thru the "crash".

 

It would have been interesting if there was no "crash" and the ColecoVision, Atari 5200 and the other pre-crash systems really took off and had more development and games made for them back then. Homebrew programmers are making some pretty impressive stuff for these older systems these days.

 

That said, Nintendo had a very good product at the right time & place and had really good/savvy marketing. The NES definitely revitalized console gaming in NA, dunno about "saving" it. Sega also had a very good console and good games, but they seemed to "wait and see" what Nintendo would do first, and then follow. Plus they didn't have as good marketing as Nintendo. And I admit I don't like the way Nintendo utilized their business practice in NA. But Nintendo just happened to take a chance, and it really payed off well for them. And even though there were pre-crash "exploring" games like Pitfall, Smurf Rescue and Jungle Hunt, Super Mario Bros. on the NES expanded on those previous games and set a noticeably higher bar in every way.

[atarian63]

It looks like Coleco was producing the Colecovision till sometime in 85 and Intellivision and Atari (5200) till 84.

The 7800 was initially released in 84, so it was "available." (In that Atari could have pushed it harder; and "might" have if there was no NES, who knows?????? Not saying that would have happened tho.)

 

That's the problem with pulling data from Wikipedia.

While they said this: All other North American game consoles were discontinued by 1984.

They also said: ultimately withdrawing from the video game market by the end of the summer of 1985.[12][13] The ColecoVision was officially discontinued by October 1985.

 

:-)

 

desiv

 

in the would have should have catagory.. Had Atari pushed and been able to push the 7800 in 84 there probably would have been no NA NES or not much of one

in the would have should have catagory.. Had Atari pushed or had been able to push 7800 in 84 there probably would have been no NA Nes or not much of one.

Edited December 11, 2013 by atarian63

[MaximRecoil]

No, there isn't. Not realistically...

I said:

 

"There is no category of product on Earth that all people have an inherent aversion to, no matter which form it takes."

 

So in order to have a basis for your "no, there isn't" statement, you need to first refute my "there is no category of product ..." statement, which you didn't do.

 

Yes, there are...

I mean, you could take it to extreme's and say things like "a market for rebreathers for humans filled with sulfuric acid."

Of course, that would be silly..

We have been talking about "dead markets". In order for a market to be dead, it has to have once been alive, by definition. There has never been any known market for "rebreathers for humans filled with sulfuric acid".

 

It would be just as silly to go to the other extreme "there is always a potential audience." Because realistically, there are some things there are no "real" markets for...

See above.

 

By "real market" I am making the assumption that we have some baselines, such as a market the size needed to maintain a video game industry for the purpose of this discussion. I kind of assumed we all agreed on that..

Yes, there are always tiny markets. There is a market now for multicarts for these old systems, but it's not the type of market we are talking about to maintain console sales...

I have been making that assumption all along, which is why it can be said that the console market died for a time during the 1980s. It is not me that is trying to make a distinction between "dead" and "mostly dead" by mentioning small pockets of market/industry that still existed during the market death.

 

As I specifically said "some markets do die," I'm not sure how you come by that.

And that is by "your own reasoning," not mine. I specifically said the opposite of that...

Yes, but your reasoning leads to the conclusion that no market ever dies, which I explained in a previous post.

 

If your definition of semantics is that you consider a market of the size of Studio II games to be a valid market for this discussion (where we are talking about a market for video game consoles in the 80's), then I'd maintain while it's technically semantics, its just flat out silly...

No, I'm the one that has said there is no meaningful difference between a dead market and a "mostly dead" market, and I also said:

 

"There is no meaningful difference between a dead market and a market that has little to no interest in what already exists and is waiting for something new and different to come along. To say there is a difference is to say that there is no such thing as a dead market for anything, because there is always the potential for someone to come up with something different enough to revive interest in that particular category."

 

According to your reasoning, no market ever dies because there is always the potential for someone to come up with something different enough to revive interest in that particular category.

[desiv]

OK, its obvious we can't come to a common agreement about what we are discussing..

 

Oh well..

 

Have a good one..

 

desiv

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

This thread summed up:

 

 

[Austin]

Well, I stopped reading around page three, gave it a few days, and then came back again. It looks like I haven't missed much, despite there being three more pages to the topic.