Nintendo Ruined Video Games

[pacman000]

Atari Corp got into some trouble when they bought Federated; I'm not surprised they couldn't pay their lawyers.

[Flojomojo]

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

 

 

I don't understand what that would look like.

 

If I had the next big thing, and podunk "Atari" offered me $10,000, and Sony Interactive Entertainment offered me $10,000,000, I would go with the bigger offer. Is that not fair?

[JBerel]

Everybody always cries "Monopoly" when their favored thingamajig isn't the popular one, of something costs more than you want to pay because other people are happy to pay for it. Welcome to American supply and demand capitalism. Most of the hub-bub in the 80's was about the evolving debates on software licensing/ownership, distribution rights, contract law, content management and marketing. It's always appropriate in a capitalist system to try your best to make your product more attractive that the other guy's. If you're successful, you shouldn't get penalized for it. Most everything has a competitor sitting at the number 2 position.

 

In America, it can be good to be number 2 if you're not a greedy, overreaching bone head. You get a sizable chuck of the revenue with less of the advertising and R&D costs. Burger King and Pepsi are two of many examples. Eventually they learn that the race isn't about being number one. It's about being profitable. The gaming outfits, back then especially, were like prospectors during the California gold rush. Always looking for the next goldmine when they should have concentrated on selling the picks and shovels.

[mr_me]

 

 

I don't understand what that would look like.

 

If I had the next big thing, and podunk "Atari" offered me $10,000, and Sony Interactive Entertainment offered me $10,000,000, I would go with the bigger offer. Is that not fair?

Right, there is only one choice. And they are not paying you, you're paying them. You'd also be forced to use one manufacturer for your cartridges and be charged unfairly for that service. Further, you'd be forced to come up with all the cash up front and take all the risk if the cartridge doesn't sell as well as anticipated. Not sure about Sony but that was the situation in 1988. Would be better if there was other options and some competition. It would be good if making the game for both systems was an option.

 

--------

Supply and demand. You have to be carefull when there is only one source of the supply.

Edited April 12, 2018 by mr_me

[JBerel]

Right, there is only one choice. And they are not paying you, you're paying them. You'd also be forced to use one manufacturer for your cartridges and be charged unfairly for that service. Further, you'd be forced to come up with all the cash up front and take all the risk if the cartridge doesn't sell as well as anticipated. Not sure about Sony but that was the situation in 1988. Would be better if there was other options and some competition. It would be good if making the game for both systems was an option.

 

There is a choice. Nobody is making anybody work with anybody else. If you want to do business with another entity, you first have to agree on terms. Otherwise, you always have the options to do nothing or do it yourself. If another outfit is successful enough to dictate terms, it's a take it or leave it situation, just like a supply and demand market is supposed to operate.

[retrocore9]

I'm late on the Rob discussion but that was a huge selling point when they debuted the Nes on the West Coast. A kid in my school came in one day and was excited he was getting "Rob" he didn't even call it Nintendo.

 

Rob Deluxe units were pretty prominent at Targets. They had a glass case that they kept Rob and the NES in so buyers can see them. The case was surrounded by those black cartridge boxes they had at launch.

[homerhomer]

Nintendo did so many things right. They focused on Quality. Yes, some of the games sucked like chubby charub but even that game looks and sounds better compared to what the other console where offering when it was released. The gamepad was a big deal. From somebody who had grown up the Intelivison and then the 5200 the NES gamepad was great. All the other joysticks joysticks\gamepads would break or cause pain. Music and sound effects where good too. I can still remember being scared in Zelda when being in a dungeon. The music set mood and the sound effects were great.

 

I'm not sure if Nintendo saved video games, but they did show everybody how to sell a quality product. They're STILL doing that today. Just look at the NES/SNES mini. It's quality while Sega and Atari flashbacks (yes I know they're licensed) are mostly regarded flawed.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[+wongojack]

Nintendo did so many things right. They focused on Quality. Yes, some of the games sucked like chubby charub but even that game looks and sounds better compared to what the other console where offering when it was released. The gamepad was a big deal. From somebody who had grown up the Intelivison and then the 5200 the NES gamepad was great. All the other joysticks joysticks\gamepads would break or cause pain. Music and sound effects where good too. I can still remember being scared in Zelda when being in a dungeon. The music set mood and the sound effects were great.

 

I'm not sure if Nintendo saved video games, but they did show everybody how to sell a quality product. They're STILL doing that today. Just look at the NES/SNES mini. It's quality while Sega and Atari flashbacks (yes I know they're licensed) are mostly regarded flawed.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

.gif removed for excessive wong-toolery

 

 

 

[Andromeda Stardust]

Wongo, no offense, but homerhomer had some good points. You look like a tool posting that.

.gif removed for excessive wong-toolery

 

 

tools1.jpg

 

lol. You've just earned yourself a "like".

 

There was much desirable games from Nintendo and licensees back in the late 80s to early 90s. This is still the case for the Switch today. Nintendo is still making some legendary games for it. Some may consider the platformer to be old in the tooth, but Nintendo still knows how to make great games. They were king of platformers in the 80s as well as today.

 

They are still the only big 3 company that is making new innovations. Playstation and Xbox are the same controller, same package since the first iterations, just more polygons and graphical prowess with each iteration. Nintendo has condolidated their portable and home console product lines with the Switch, and provide a great alternative to those tired of same old fps and mmorpg rehashes on the dudebro boxes.

[GameGirl420]

I love NES but afraid to say Atari was soo much better,and on some level still is.

 

 

I feel Playstation 3 - 4 and XBox 360 is what ruined gaming with all those hyper realistic 3D graphics,but boring as hell gameplay games.

Those consoles certainly killed the arcades also. Suddenly home graphics were becoming more superior to the arcade and many

companies seemed to stop making quality arcade game cabs in favor of boring 3D home titles .

[enoofu]

I thought the issue is mainly Atari being a shell of Tramel Technology Ltd who didn't care for consoles, and Atari Games Corporation being heavily restricted from the Console market by Tramel owning the Atari IP for consoles.

Supported by a Chip crash in NA which disrupted chips manufacturing

Atari main rival was Commodore and Apple and no one is blaming them for being a monopoly

 

Nintendo didn't have any of that sillyness

[+wongojack]

I thought the issue is mainly Atari being a shell of Tramel Technology Ltd who didn't care for consoles, and Atari Games Corporation being heavily restricted from the Console market by Tramel owning the Atari IP for consoles.

Supported by a Chip crash in NA which disrupted chips manufacturing

Atari main rival was Commodore and Apple and no one is blaming them for being a monopoly

 

Nintendo didn't have any of that sillyness

 

So then . . . Atari ruined gaming?

[deepthaw]

I love NES but afraid to say Atari was soo much better,and on some level still is.

 

 

I feel Playstation 3 - 4 and XBox 360 is what ruined gaming with all those hyper realistic 3D graphics,but boring as hell gameplay games.

Those consoles certainly killed the arcades also. Suddenly home graphics were becoming more superior to the arcade and many

companies seemed to stop making quality arcade game cabs in favor of boring 3D home titles .

I think the market killed games themselves. If countless iterations of Call of Duty and Madden didn't sell millions of copies, publishers would branch out.

 

I've taken a liking to Indie gaming to get my creativity fix. Smaller budgets, more experimentation.

[zylon]

I think the market killed games themselves. If countless iterations of Call of Duty and Madden didn't sell millions of copies, publishers would branch out.

 

I've taken a liking to Indie gaming to get my creativity fix. Smaller budgets, more experimentation.

 

I didn't buy anything like that at all and found plenty of "good to me" games on 360, between physical and downloaded.

In my case, on this thread, I just didn't like NES. Also not a Sony fan either, that's life.

Edited April 15, 2018 by zylon

[Andromeda Stardust]

I love NES but afraid to say Atari was soo much better,and on some level still is.

 

 

I feel Playstation 3 - 4 and XBox 360 is what ruined gaming with all those hyper realistic 3D graphics,but boring as hell gameplay games.

Those consoles certainly killed the arcades also. Suddenly home graphics were becoming more superior to the arcade and many

companies seemed to stop making quality arcade game cabs in favor of boring 3D home titles .

5th gen 3d consoles killed the arcade, namely Playstation and to a lesser extent N64 and Saturn. Arcade operators installed rather expensive and elaborate arcade cabs only so people could play them at home the following month.

 

Once in high school, we took an outing to Putt Putt Golf n Games and stopped inside the arcade after we were done with the course. One of my buddies was about to put two quarters in the Cruisin World cabinet and another buddy spoke up, "Don't waste your money on that. I've got the N64 cart back at the dorm."

 

We got back home and they played Cruisin' USA (yeah totally the same game) on the N64 for hours until it was bedtime. My generation complained that arcade video games were slowly getting replaced with ticket redemption machines, but it was really our own fault for choosing to play at home instead of going out.

[Flojomojo]

So then . . . Atari ruined gaming?

Sure

Maybe through neglect, if nothing else

Allowing third party crap to dilute the market

And licensing drek of their own which will remain unnamed by me

[Osgeld]

Atari main rival was Commodore and Apple and no one is blaming them for being a monopoly

 

 

hunh? yea no one is blaming commodore, apple, atari, acorn, sinclair, amstrad, or radio shack for having a monoploy in the 8 bit computer market, that's cause there was plenty of competition, you DO understand what a monopoly is right?

[pacman000]

"Allowing third party crap to dilute the market"

 

Commodore should've included some sort of lockout chip on the C64, to keep all those homemade tape games off the machine. (Sarcasm.)

[mbd30]

"Allowing third party crap to dilute the market"

 

Commodore should've included some sort of lockout chip on the C64, to keep all those homemade tape games off the machine. (Sarcasm.)

 

There was also a lot of piracy on the C64. People don't feel too burned when they're playing a crappy game that was free. You had to pay for Atari 2600 crap.

Edited April 15, 2018 by mbd30

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

There was also a lot of piracy on the C64. People don't feel too burned when they're playing a crappy game that was free. You had to pay for Atari 2600 crap.

This is true, but with carts being difficult to copy based on proprietary form factor, developers of cart media put more effort into their game because they'll make more revenue. As opposed to disks where one person buys the first disk then makes ten copies to distribute to ten friends who then do likewise. Casual copying caused most disk games to sell far fewer units as a result.

 

The issue with clandistine fly by night companies flooding the market with crappy Atari games is totally different. When the NES launched in the US, Nintendo took efforts to make sure that licensed NES games would never be undersold by unlicensed third parties. Despite their best efforts, there were still plenty of companies releasing unlicensed games for the system.

[+wood_jl]

I love Atari first and always (I'm from that era), but I don't understand how anybody could think Nintendo "ruined" gaming. As a young teenager, I turned my Atari nose up at the NES, until I actually played one for the first time. The first time I played Super Mario Bros, I got a similar feeling to the first time I played "Adventure" on the Atari - that I was playing in a little alternate world inside my TV set. In the post-crash era when most retailers wouldn't even entertain the notion of carrying game consoles anymore, Nintendo prevailed against those headwinds.

 

Sure, they used some crappy, unfair, and manipulative business practices to shackle both the retailers and the other video game competitors, but that's the business side of things. At that age, I didn't care about the business practices, but the games were fun.

[Tanooki]

I've stayed out of this as it's too easy to get into a huge post tearing that garbage to shreds piece by piece using no fan love and just pure Nintendo patterns, Nintendo sales data and tactics by the decade, Nintendo habits, and Nintendo controls in the early days after what happened in the US console market before their release. It's pure troll posting to infuriate Nintendo fans who just scream and thump with the nuh-uh attitude but with few who would have the smarts to back it up and/or waste the time to do it. It's not hard to with some base level of intelligence and small research to call bs on the entire crap premise they ruined gaming. They did do some overly childish garbage when it came to censorship like crosses in Castlevania so I loved seeing them roasted over with MK1 back in the day, yet they were unfairly even with it given the sex scene and skull hollowing bloody sniping found in Golgo-13.

 

It's just as easy to rip into a Nintendo fanboy to say they saved it as well. They didn't save it, but as far as the US goes they repaired it with years of work, repairing both relations with retailers but also with consumers as far as trust and willingness to open their time and wallets once more. There was a burn back then caused by many factors, and Nintendo did take it perhaps a bit far with their overly pushy controls, but it wasn't a total lock as some people making games found from within they could form puppet companies to make stuff on that hardware or others, let alone do it under their own name still too or via sublicensing.

 

Sega and NEC which on a wider scale found ways to pull stuff in around that, as did good developers too from within like Konami via Ultra and Sega through Tengen(Atari), or outside with NEC Avenue doing Sega and Capcom stuff on PC Engine. Then where was Namco/Namcot that didn't give a damn and did whatever on their name or someone elses too.

[mbd30]

Once again, Nintendo saved the US console gaming industry.

 

Did they save computer games, gaming outside of the US, etc.? No. Were Americans still playing games during the crash? Of course. Would some other company have accomplished the same thing if Nintendo hadn't? Speculation. Would gaming have been "better" if not for Nintendo? Speculation and a matter of opinion. But it's a fact and not opinion that they were the ones who revived the dying/dead console industry in the US.

 

It only turns into fanboyism when you credit Nintendo for saving all gaming everywhere. I don't know that anyone actually claims such a thing.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Should change the title to Sony/MS ruined gaming? Would that be better?

[Flojomojo]

Remember when "gamers" FREAKED OUT that the Wii was drawing in casual people?