Nintendo Ruined Video Games

[BassGuitari]

I won't speak to the diversity or lack thereof in NES games, other than to say I'm sure the biggest fans would say there's a wide array of software on the thing.

 

You don't have to be one of the NES's biggest fans to acknowledge the diversity of software on the NES. It's there. You really don't even have to dig very deep to find games like Duck Hunt, Star Voyager, Yoshi, Galaga, Final Fantasy, Arkanoid, Tecmo Super Bowl, or other non-sidescrolling, non-platforming games. In the same vein, though, it must also be acknowledged that it does skew disproportionately toward side-scrollers and platformers while other genres--although present--are underrepresented.

 

Same thing with the pre-Crash systems. Yeah, there was a disproportionate amount of Pac-Man and Space Invaders clones, but there was also plenty of other (and sometimes really bizarre) stuff: Raft Rider, Skeet Shoot, Squeeze Box, Stellar Track, Sky Diver, Name This Game, Mangia, X-Man (or any of the adult games), Crackpots, Casino, Gauntlet, Marauder...and that's just the Atari 2600.

 

Same thing happened practically every five-odd years (give or take) since 1980. A handful of game genres dominated the scene while others were consigned to niche or "indie" status. First it was the Space Invaders and Pac-Man games, then the sidescrollers, platformers, and beat-em-ups, then the 2D fighters. The 32-bit heyday seemed to exhibit a little more creativity IMO, at least superficially, even if it really boiled down to a lot of RPGs, Doom clones, Resident Evil clones, and 3D implementations of extant genres traditionally done in 2D. Now it's FPSes.

 

And the consoles they appeared on are always going to be linked to them. Time and place. When I think "16-bit," my first thought is "Fighters." When I think "Atari," one of my first thoughts is "Space Invaders." They were the games and consoles that coincided to define their respective eras in videogame history. Doesn't mean there wasn't a whole lot of other stuff going on beneath the surface.

Edited April 11, 2018 by BassGuitari

[mr_me]

I feel like SMB redefined the genre. Before that there were a lot of platformers, but many of them didn't scroll. (well, Mappy, INTV Kool-Aid Man, Keystone Kapers) .. but I can't think of too many others

Namco had a couple of side scrollers in the arcades prior to SMB. E.g. Pac-Land and Dragon Buster. They even had annoying background music. Major Havoc had portions that were multidirectional platform scrolling.

Edited April 11, 2018 by mr_me

[Flojomojo]

And the consoles they appeared on are always going to be linked to them. Time and place. When I think "16-bit," my first thought is "Fighters." When I think "Atari," one of my first thoughts is "Space Invaders." They were the games and consoles that coincided to define their respective eras in videogame history. Doesn't mean there wasn't a whole lot of other stuff going on beneath the surface.

 

That's weird, isn't it? It's also a bit unfair that our brains make these categories and stereotypes.

 

I was like WHOA when I was playing New Super Mario Bros. on the Wii U a while back, and realized ...this is a DIRECT DESCENDANT to Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo, and it even feels like it with the digital controls, pixel graphics, and standard definition resolution. I had forgotten, because of all the slick 3D stuff in the interim, between 64 and Cube ... but WOW, they're all just video games inside, aren't they?

[MrMaddog]

This was claimed by mostly by Namco through its subsidiary in Tengen/Atari Games. However, we know from court documents that Nintendo was indeed fair. It gave no developer any sort of special treatment with regards to the licensing fees or to the allocation of cartridges. If anything we know that Atari Games tried desperately to get special treatment from Nintendo over the other Third parties by saying its back catalog made them unique, therefore they should have exclusive rights to more cartridges on demand over other companies. Especially when there was a ROM shortage internationally.

 

If Nintendo had given in to the demands of Atari Games/Namco, Nintendo would have burned a lot of bridges with Japanese and American publishers.

 

 

If that was the case then why was there a class action lawsuit against Nintendo of America by Attorney generals from various states? Why were they being sued for breaking federal anti-trust laws? And why did NoA agree to a settlement by sending rebate coupons for NES carts that were finally allowed to be reduced in price by stores for the first time?

 

I remember exactly what happen in the "good ol' days"...stores were not allowed to sell any competing game systems if they sold NES games. Any unauthorized carts made by Tengen & Color Dreams were taking off shelves due to Nintendo's threat of withholding all NES game shipments, and yes the demand was so high that it was a punishment to retailers. Legally this is the definition of a monopoly, controlling the entire market by strangling the competition and imtimidating retailers.

 

I gotten a rebate couple from Nintendo because my mom bought an NES for me in the qualifying time period. Not one local store that sold NES games will honor it, in fact one person told me they don't want to have any business with Nintendo anymore and he sounded scared. So I ended up having take a half-hour drive to the mall where I could get a game, which was reduced at half price.

 

Please don't get me wrong I have nothing against Nintendo's games but their business practices at the time. Yes they were necessary in '86 to restore the crashed industry but it gotten strong enough to support two competing systems. And once Sega was allowed to evenly compete against Nintendo in the States, it forced the Big N to focus more on making "fun" games instead of trying to rule the industry with an iron fist.

 

History is full of good & bad things, you can't just pick and choose the parts you only like...

[deepthaw]

 

Same thing with the pre-Crash systems. Yeah, there was a disproportionate amount of Pac-Man and Space Invaders clones, but there was also plenty of other (and sometimes really bizarre) stuff: Raft Rider, Skeet Shoot, Squeeze Box, Stellar Track, Sky Diver, Name This Game, Mangia, X-Man (or any of the adult games), Crackpots, Casino, Gauntlet, Marauder...and that's just the Atari 2600.

 

I'd say there was actually less clones on 2600 et al. than later systems. My reasoning is two-fold: The first is that the VCS was so limited that it's hard to make a game that plays similarly to another without being an outright ripoff - once you've implemented the mechanics, you don't have a lot of wiggle room to mix up the formula. The second is that we didn't have a blueprint as to what game genres could or should exist. So while we definitely ended up with stuff that fit (retroactively) into neat categories like shooters, platformers, etc. we also had a lot of weird stuff like Demons to Diamonds, Cosmic Ark, etc.

 

What really surprises me in retrospect is just how many first person space shooters there were on the 2600 and its contemporaries. It wasn't until I started reading up on games that I realized I was in fact playing a Star Raiders clone back in the day (Solaris) and there more bunches more titles.

[empsolo]

 

If that was the case then why was there a class action lawsuit against Nintendo of America by Attorney generals from various states? Why were they being sued for breaking federal anti-trust laws? And why did NoA agree to a settlement by sending rebate coupons for NES carts that were finally allowed to be reduced in price by stores for the first time?

Because it was coming during a time of intense anti-Japanese sentiment stemmed from the Japanese coming into and dominating what was once traditionally American fields. I.e the auto industry, electronics, and the computing.

 

I remember exactly what happen in the "good ol' days"...stores were not allowed to sell any competing game systems if they sold NES games.

This was alleged in Atari Corp v Nintendo. A case that Nintendo won because Howard Lincoln took the stand and did two things. First he testified that it was not Nintendo policy to deny stock to retailers over issues stemming from competition on store shelves. Indeed, neither the justice department nor Atari Corp lawyers found any documents or internal memos in their subpoenas to verify this accusation. But not only that but Lincoln reminded the jury that threats of intimidation was a policy conducted by the big three console makers just before the crash. Each company was alleged to have issued threats to stores that they should suspend shipments unless their competitors were pulled from store shelves. Nintendo pointed out that Atari Corp was simply projecting the policies of its previous incarnation onto a company that had not engaged in that type of behavior.

 

 

Any unauthorized carts made by Tengen & Color Dreams were taking off shelves due to Nintendo's threat of withholding all NES game shipments, and yes the demand was so high that it was a punishment to retailers. Legally this is the definition of a monopoly, controlling the entire market by strangling the competition and imtimidating retailers.

Except Tengen’s carts were pulled because of the fact that they committed gross and blatant patent infringement by way of stealing from the Copyright Office the specs to the 10NES lockout chip. Second, on the point of color dreams it should be noted that again this was alleged but was never proven. It should be pointed out that in Color Dreams case, they used a voltage spike to defeat the lockout chip, something that could potentially damage an NES over long term use. Nintendo was well within their rights to point out to retailers the damage such devices could potentially have but again couldn’t dictate wether retailers took that chance or not.

 

Again this was alleged but never proven as we saw in the Federal Government’s decision to settle and in Atari Corp’s inability to win its own case.

 

The only state to return a guilty verdict was the State of New York but that was over not fulfilling the orders of retailers to the amounts they were requesting. Nintendo’s defense was that they were trying to prevent retailers from over ordering and causing yet another crash in the market place. New York State didn’t buy it but no other State’s Attorney General followed New York’s lead and instead ended up dropping their investigations. Finding no evidence of a coercive monopoly.

 

I gotten a rebate couple from Nintendo because my mom bought an NES for me in the qualifying time period. Not one local store that sold NES games will honor it, in fact one person told me they don't want to have any business with Nintendo anymore and he sounded scared. So I ended up having take a half-hour drive to the mall where I could get a game, which was reduced at half price.

I call bullshit here as I distinctly remember using the rebate my family got to pick up an NES game at a toys r us, I think SMB 3, sometime in 1991.

 

Please don't get me wrong I have nothing against Nintendo's games but their business practices at the time. Yes they were necessary in '86 to restore the crashed industry but it gotten strong enough to support two competing systems. And once Sega was allowed to evenly compete against Nintendo in the States, it forced the Big N to focus more on making "fun" games instead of trying to rule the industry with an iron fist.

Sega wasn’t allowed to compete any more than Atari Corp wasn’t allowed to compete. I think people were shocked that Jack Tremiel, Mr Business is War himself, had so badly mismanaged the Atari 7800 launch that must have meant that the Evil Japanese have illegally prevented this innocent American company from finding market success. All I remember is that all these court cases and investigations were touted in the Media as means to protect American industry and they largely became a big waste of time and tax payer money because the government couldn’t find shit after years of digging. There is a reason why Bill Clinton’s administration ended up dropping most of the investigations of Japanese companies when his team ended up leading the justice department. It was just a waste of time.

 

History is full of good & bad things, you can't just pick and choose the parts you only like...

History is also nuanced and full of context. I should know seeing as I was a history Major in college.

 

 

 

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[pacman000]

Do you need a memo to tell sells people that you prefer exclusive dealers?

 

I'd like to hear from some 80's toy store managers; what was it like dealing with Nintendo in the 80's?

[empsolo]

Do you need a memo to tell sells people that you prefer exclusive dealers?

 

I'd like to hear from some 80's toy store managers; what was it like dealing with Nintendo in the 80's?

You do when you need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Nintendo was intentionally leveraging stock against competitors. Anything else is just innuendo and hearsay as a Jury would later return in Atari Corp v Nintendo.

 

Which might I add was a civil case. Where the burden of proof is preponderance of the evidence. A burden that is significantly lower. If you can’t prove Nintendo was engaging in illegal activity in a mere civil suit, there was no way Nintendo was going down in a potential criminal trial.

 

 

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Edited April 11, 2018 by empsolo

[Andromeda Stardust]

I don't think there was ever much demand by retailers or availability for the deluxe pack. My store was not able to ever get it, and at least in the southeast, the action set was the only thing we stocked. I remember looking at the warehouse manifest and there was only one skew ever available for our company. The action pack was much more widely supplied by Nintendo. The basic set without the pack in game started showing up at a lower price point later at our store. May be that many retailers didn't even order the thing until the action pack came out.

 

nes launched nationwide in 1986. the action set with the 2-in-1 came out in '88. gyromite was a footnote in gaming history by that point.

[mr_me]

...

 

This was alleged in Atari Corp v Nintendo. A case that Nintendo won because Howard Lincoln took the stand and did two things. First he testified that it was not Nintendo policy to deny stock to retailers over issues stemming from competition on store shelves. Indeed, neither the justice department nor Atari Corp lawyers found any documents or internal memos in their subpoenas to verify this accusation. But not only that but Lincoln reminded the jury that threats of intimidation was a policy conducted by the big three console makers just before the crash. Each company was alleged to have issued threats to stores that they should suspend shipments unless their competitors were pulled from store shelves. Nintendo pointed out that Atari Corp was simply projecting the policies of its previous incarnation onto a company that had not engaged in that type of behavior.

The 1989 case had Atari Corp (Tramiel) allege that Nintendo prevented game developers producing games on competing systems. This was true. Nintendo's licensing rule prevented developers releasing the game on a competing system for two years. There is also nothing illegal about that except under a monopoly where it becomes an antitrust issue. With an 80% to 90% US market share of video game consoles Nintendo had a monopoly in the late 1980s. I can't find any information on this ruling other than that Atari Corp. was not successful. Can anyone help out here with information on the case..

 

Regarding Atari, Mattel, and I guess Coleco strong-arming retailers in the early 1980s; what happened did Atari threaten retailers over Activision cartridges? I doubt Atari had the monopoly power of Nintendo in 1989. Atari and Mattel were forced to accept any returns from licensed retailers, which contributed to the hundreds of millions of dollars they lost in 1983. There are plenty of stories such as Nintendo retailers being forced to prepay for one full year of stock; Nintendo not accepting returns under any circumstance, not even warranty claims.

 

 

Except Tengen’s carts were pulled because of the fact that they committed gross and blatant patent infringement by way of stealing from the Copyright Office the specs to the 10NES lockout chip. Second, on the point of color dreams it should be noted that again this was alleged but was never proven. It should be pointed out that in Color Dreams case, they used a voltage spike to defeat the lockout chip, something that could potentially damage an NES over long term use. Nintendo was well within their rights to point out to retailers the damage such devices could potentially have but again couldn’t dictate wether retailers took that chance or not.

Again this was alleged but never proven as we saw in the Federal Government’s decision to settle and in Atari Corp’s inability to win its own case.

The only state to return a guilty verdict was the State of New York but that was over not fulfilling the orders of retailers to the amounts they were requesting. Nintendo’s defense was that they were trying to prevent retailers from over ordering and causing yet another crash in the market place. New York State didn’t buy it but no other State’s Attorney General followed New York’s lead and instead ended up dropping their investigations. Finding no evidence of a coercive monopoly.

...

I call bullshit here as I distinctly remember using the rebate my family got to pick up an NES game at a toys r us, I think SMB 3, sometime in 1991.

In this case the judge did agree that Atari Games (Tengen) would be within their rights to reverse engineer the NES cartridge lockout and produce unlicensed cartridges. Nintendo won however, because Atari Games committed fraud when acquiring the lockout software from the copyright office. Atari Games violated Nintendo copyright looking for a shortcut in their reverse engineering efforts; too bad. In a monopoly situation which is what Nintendo had in 1988, cartridge lockout would be an antitrust issue.

 

It is a different case than the Nintendo price fixing and retailer strong arming allegations in a joint effort from the FCC and several states. Here, it was Nintendo that settled agreeing to cease and desist from price fixing activities. The FCC agreed to drop further investigations. It was a great deal for Nintendo but a bad deal for everyone else. What kind of penalty is a rebate that goes right back into Nintendo's pocket. And they got the FCC off their backs at the same time. It was a case that dragged on for several years, after the Nintendo monopoly resolved itself thanks to Sega gaining market share with their Genesis console.

[empsolo]

The 1989 case had Atari Corp (Tramiel) allege that Nintendo prevented game developers producing games on competing systems. This was true. Nintendo's licensing rule prevented developers releasing the game on a competing system for two years. There is also nothing illegal about that except under a monopoly where it becomes an antitrust issue.

Except, Lincoln in court pointed out that it was not company policy to prevent a game from an existing IP from being on another system within that two year time frame. It just couldn't be the same game. There was nothing stopping a Konami or a Capcom from making an exclusive or original game for another system. In fact, HudsonSoft did exactly this with it's separate TG-16 and NES versions of Bomberman for example. Not only that but the idea of console temporary exclusivity was later ruled to be not illegal. Considering that in 2018, Sony and Microsoft both seem to be in competition to try and out do the other in moneyhatting temporary third party exclusives.

 

 

 

 

With an 80% to 90% US market share of video game consoles Nintendo had a monopoly in the late 1980s. I can't find any information on this ruling other than that Atari Corp. was not successful. Can anyone help out here with information on the case..

I believe bits and pieces of of Atari Corp v Nintendo has been posted online through Stanford University's Law department. But according to the Podcast They Create Worlds' episode dealing with Nintendo's various lawsuits, the Jury in this case found Nintendo not guilty of Monopolistic practices but deadlocked over the retailer issue. Because the retail issue needed the Monopoly charge to stick, the judge in this case granted a summary judgment dismissing Atari Corp's complaint over retail space.

 

 

 

Regarding Atari, Mattel, and I guess Coleco strong-arming retailers in the early 1980s; what happened did Atari threaten retailers over Activision cartridges?

No, it threatened retailers over the issue that Mattel and Coleco had created adapters to play VCS games on their respective systems. According to Phoenix: the Fall and Rise of Video Games, Atari had threatened retailers that if Coleco's expansion module came to shelves, Atari would pull it's inventory out altogether. The other two were alleged to have engaged in whisper campaigns against the 5200 and VCS as a retaliatory measure just as the Crash was beginning to make it's effects known.

 

 

 

I doubt Atari had the monopoly power of Nintendo in 1989.

Atari had at one point somewhere around 70-80% of the market with Coleco and Mattel fighting over that remaining 20 percent.

 

 

Atari and Mattel were forced to accept any returns from licensed retailers, which contributed to the hundreds of millions of dollars they lost in 1983. There are plenty of stories such as Nintendo retailers being forced to prepay for one full year of stock; Nintendo not accepting returns under any circumstance, not even warranty claims.

This is standard even today. The No returns and no refunds is a standard policy that Nintendo created and was used by NEC and Sega for a time, and are still used by Microsoft and Sony. You can't let retailers over order a bunch of inventory and then turn around and demand a refund when their stock that they foolishly ordered isn't selling how they thought it would sell. As we saw, that type of policy would destroy any of the current manufacturers as it did Atari and all of the smaller publishers. What Nintendo did do, however, was expand the warranty system to a year. Previously, the standard warranty was 30-90 days. This allowed consumers who had bought thier NES months earlier to get it repaired for no extra charge if it broke for any reason during that time.

 

In this case the judge did agree that Atari Games (Tengen) would be within their rights to reverse engineer the NES cartridge lockout and produce unlicensed cartridges. Nintendo won however, because Atari Games committed fraud when acquiring the lockout software from the copyright office. Atari Games violated Nintendo copyright looking for a shortcut in their reverse engineering efforts; too bad. In a monopoly situation which is what Nintendo had in 1988, cartridge lockout would be an antitrust issue.

Maybe, but as a judge would rule in Sega v. Accolade, lock out chips aren't illegal so long as the security system doesn't force platform holder's trademarks on to the third party's cartridge.

 

 

It is a different case than the Nintendo price fixing and retailer strong arming allegations in a joint effort from the FCC and several states. Here, it was Nintendo that settled agreeing to cease and desist from price fixing activities. The FCC agreed to drop further investigations. It was a great deal for Nintendo but a bad deal for everyone else. What kind of penalty is a rebate that goes right back into Nintendo's pocket. And they got the FCC off their backs at the same time. It was a case that dragged on for several years, after the Nintendo monopoly resolved itself thanks to Sega gaining market share with their Genesis console.

It was the only hand the FCC could play, really. The government had no evidence of coercive tactics against retailers, had no evidence of coercive tactics against potential hardware competitors, and certainly couldn't prove that the five games a year and 2 exclusivity was illegal. Imagine if the FCC had taken the company to court and lost? It would have been a big black eye for the the government that was beginning to feel blowback from the Asian community over the anti-Japanese hysteria that had swept the country in the late 80's.

 

Besides, IMHO, If any monopoly existed for Nintendo it was because Sega corporation let Tonka ruin any chance of getting the Master System into homes and because Jack "Business is War" Tremiel decided that having the ST fight a losing battle against the Amiga and IBM in the US was much more worthwhile endeavor than actually paying for real substantial development on quality games for the 7800. Unlike the Computer Market, being cheap doesn't win you any favors in the video game market.

Edited April 12, 2018 by empsolo

[Flojomojo]

All this talk of lawyers and disputes is making me edgy. The notion of sitting on stacks of unsold cartridges gives me the heebie jeebies.

 

Would it be true to say that thanks to all the precedents set down in the 80s and 90s, we enjoy a far more stable publisher and retailer environment than before?

[Andromeda Stardust]

All this talk of lawyers and disputes is making me edgy. The notion of sitting on stacks of unsold cartridges gives me the heebie jeebies.

 

Stacks of unsold carts sitting in warehouses generates nerd boners, but only if it has sat untouched for 20 years or more. For instance a warehouse full of unsold Wii-U games is worth nothing today, but it might be something big in 2038.

[Flojomojo]

That's not what I mean. I'm talking about risk to retailers, having to liquidate unreturnable physical media.

 

I assume they've gotten better at this since the Atari days, though.

[JBerel]

Yeah they have. Retailers started setting up rules to allow them to return unsold merchandise which is why you seldom see the fire sales like you did back then. And probably somewhat related, online retailers are killing the stores so most of the supply/demand issues are being worked out behind the scenes rather than in the discount bins.

 

On one hand I'm glad I was there with a little money when it all came crashing down, but I have to admit, my enjoyment of the individual games was not nearly as much when I brought home 20 at a time for 2-5 bucks each. Goes to show the hollowness of coveting things you can't have, which is probably similar to the collector mindset today. The old cart games are available for free, but some folks only want the original carts, especially if they're hard to get. Humans are such weird animals.

[Flojomojo]

Yeah, there's a big difference between buying something because you want it, versus grabbing a bargain just because it's cheap.

 

And yet I grab just about every Humble Bundle and subscribe to PS+ and XBgold. Ah well, there's pleasure in the acquisition, that stuff is within my means, and since it's digital, the clutter doesn't take up any actual real estate other than on hard drives.

[mr_me]

Except, Lincoln in court pointed out that it was not company policy to prevent a game from an existing IP from being on another system within that two year time frame. It just couldn't be the same game. There was nothing stopping a Konami or a Capcom from making an exclusive or original game for another system. In fact, ... Not only that but the idea of console temporary exclusivity was later ruled to be not illegal. Considering that in 2018, Sony and Microsoft both seem to be in competition to try and out do the other in moneyhatting temporary third party exclusives.

If forced to choose between releasing a game for the nes or a competing system in 1988 United States, a game developer will choose the nes every time. There really is no choice. This gives the nes console an unfair advantage over competitors and becomes an anti-trust issue. Anyway, what matters is what the judge says; right or wrong. It's too bad there are no details about the ruling out there.

 

 

HudsonSoft did exactly this with it's separate TG-16 and NES versions of Bomberman for example.

They may not be the same game but according to wikipedia, Bomberman for Nes was 1989 in NA and Bomberman for TG-16 was 1991 in NA.

 

 

No, it threatened retailers over the issue that Mattel and Coleco had created adapters to play VCS games on their respective systems. According to Phoenix: the Fall and Rise of Video Games, Atari had threatened retailers that if Coleco's expansion module came to shelves, Atari would pull it's inventory out altogether. The other two were alleged to have engaged in whisper campaigns against the 5200 and VCS as a retaliatory measure just as the Crash was beginning to make it's effects known.

 

Atari had at one point somewhere around 70-80% of the market with Coleco and Mattel fighting over that remaining 20 percent.

 

Had Atari withheld their 2600 Pac-man cartridge from retailers it would have been a positive for video gaming in general; still should be considered anti-competitive under anti-trust laws. So Atari and Nintendo would have both been wrong.

 

Atari may have had the sales of a monopoly but with Activision and Imagic cartridges and Gemini consoles out there they hardly had the monopoly power Nintendo had. The Atari 2600 was easily reversed engineered, so they had no power over game developers. The TIA chip was covered under a patent so Atari was legally protected against clone systems, it wasn't an anti-trust issue. Coleco was forced to pay license fees to Atari. In 1981-82 Mattel did have 20% of the video game market but that changed once the next generation game systems came out. Not sure what Coleco's share was in 1983 but it should have been significant.

 

 

 

IMHO, If any monopoly existed for Nintendo it was because Sega corporation let Tonka ruin any chance of getting the Master System into homes and because Jack "Business is War" Tremiel decided that having the ST fight a losing battle against the Amiga and IBM in the US was much more worthwhile endeavor than actually paying for real substantial development on quality games for the 7800. Unlike the Computer Market, being cheap doesn't win you any favors in the video game market.

It doesn't matter how Nintendo got it's monopoly power. A monopoly itself is not necessarily illegal, nor is a closed game system (eg. cartridge lockout), nor was it illegal to reverse-engineer and bypass the cartridge lockout. It is the government's responsibility to ensure there is a competitive market and is why there are antitrust laws.

Edited April 12, 2018 by mr_me

[zzip]

That's not what I mean. I'm talking about risk to retailers, having to liquidate unreturnable physical media.

 

I assume they've gotten better at this since the Atari days, though.

 

Yep, they invented digital distribution

[Flojomojo]

It doesn't matter how Nintendo got it's monopoly power. A monopoly itself is not necessarily illegal, nor is a closed game system (eg. cartridge lockout), nor was it illegal to reverse-engineer and bypass the cartridge lockout. It is the government's responsibility to ensure there is a competitive market and is why there are antitrust laws.

 

I don't think there's ever been a real monopoly in video game land. Every console or computer platform I can think of, regardless of market dominance, always had at least one healthy competitor. Having a closed system (controlling what goes on your platform) is not a monopoly.

 

Yep, they invented digital distribution

 

Heh, sure. Plus there's been a lot of consolidation at retail, just like with music and books. Toy stores like TRU and KB are going and gone, electronics retailers like CompUSA and Circuit City have disappeared, and department stores like Macy's and JC Penney have gotten out of the game as well. I bought my Intellivision at a drug store, that's not happening anymore. I'm somewhat surprised to see that Sears.com is still selling games. Do they have them in brick and mortar Sears stores?

 

It took a few years, but I've finally flushed the "let's check out the game, book, and music stores" behavior out of my system. When I get moody about how shopping is less fun because all my nerd things are online, I remind myself that it's better to have everything literally a finger-tap away.

[mr_me]

Maybe the judge felt the Atari 7800 and Sega Master System were healthy competitors. It would be interesting to see what his/her thoughts were. Still wouldn't excuse anyone from other violations of anti-trust laws. You can exercise monopoly power without having a true monopoly.

[Flojomojo]

Maybe the judge felt the Atari 7800 and Sega Master System were healthy competitors. It would be interesting to see what his/her thoughts were. Still wouldn't excuse anyone from other violations of anti-trust laws. You can exercise monopoly power without having a true monopoly.

I would think the decision would be online somewhere? Or in some "history of game law" book I would not care to read, but would enjoy a summarization?

[deepthaw]

Maybe the judge felt the Atari 7800 and Sega Master System were healthy competitors. It would be interesting to see what his/her thoughts were. Still wouldn't excuse anyone from other violations of anti-trust laws. You can exercise monopoly power without having a true monopoly.

 

Looks like it was a jury trial: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/05/01/Nintendo-wins-antitrust-suit/4471704692800/

 

In that case, we're less likely to have an explanation as to why they came to the decision they did.

[Flojomojo]

Looks like it was a jury trial: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/05/01/Nintendo-wins-antitrust-suit/4471704692800/

 

In that case, we're less likely to have an explanation as to why they came to the decision they did.

This is sounds about right

 

Nintendo said such power is legal if it stems from superior products and performance.

 

It would be fun to read Atari's argument. A few years later, they went on to get hosed again with Rayman and Phear on the Jaguar.

 

System exclusives are par for the course nowadays. It's hard to imagine why they shouldn't be.

[empsolo]

Interestingly, this was considered a slam dunk case for Atari Corp when the suit was initially brought. Unfortunately, Jack decided that it was a wiser choice to pay for the cheapest legal counsel that money could buy that specialized in antitrust law. Especially considering that hundreds of people were deposed during the course of the trial.

 

When Nintendo won the suit, Atari, according to sources, ended up having financial difficulties in paying for costs of the proceedings. Jack ended up going to Nintendo with a proposal that it would drop any attempts at appeals if Nintendo agreed to pay Atari Corps’ legal fees.

 

 

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Edited April 12, 2018 by empsolo

[mr_me]

This is sounds about right

 

 

It would be fun to read Atari's argument. A few years later, they went on to get hosed again with Rayman and Phear on the Jaguar.

 

System exclusives are par for the course nowadays. It's hard to imagine why they shouldn't be.

It would have been better had developers had the option to do an exclusive and enter into an agreement fairly.