It’s a miracle the nes sold like hot cakes

[+GoldenWheels]

18 hours ago, Turbo-Torch said:

 

Lol.  I have a nephew who's only 4 years younger than me.  I remember being at his birthday party when he was turning 13.  He was expecting an NES, but my sister and brother-in-law cheaped out* and bought got him a 7800 instead.

The look on his face was priceless when he unwrapped it.  He was always a super nice kid and it was one of those deals where he was trying his best to look excited and appreciative while not crying at the same time.  His friends' smiles turned to instant frowns as the giftwrap came off.

Sorry, no SMB for you, you get Pole Position II instead woohoo!  

 

 

I feel the pain. My parents got me an Atari XE instead of a NES for Xmas in I think 88 or 89. I got Bug Hunt and FSII instead of SMB. I also tried to not to be a spoiled, jerky kid about it.

 

It was hard.

[Hwlngmad]

It wasn't really a miracle.  Granted, it could have failed.  But, fortunately the NES was the right system with the right games at the right time (in the US).  Very much like the PS1 and PS2 afterwards and (to a degree) the 2600 before it.

[theoakwoody]

Everyone talks about the NES in the US but it was released in Japan in 1983 and nothing could touch it for years.  The sega master system came out in 1985 but no one in Japan cares about its amazing graphics because the famicom was already established as the dominant player.  Nintendos foresight to allow mappers to be easily implemented through cartridges kept the console relevant for a long time.  My first system was the 7800 but I was 6 and had no clue that I did anything but play 2600 games.  I almost think the backwards compatibility hurt the 7800 because it confuses kids as to what games played on it.  I bought Mario bros, Pac-Man jr, skateboardin’, real sports football at toys r us and loved them in 1986 even though they were 2600 games.  Once I got the NES I put the 7800 for a while.

[ClassicGMR]

On 4/24/2022 at 12:46 AM, thanatos said:

Atari 2600 owning kids (like me) saw Super Mario Brothers, Zelda and others, and were completely blown away.  It was an amazing graphics and sound improvement.  I was even familiar with with Colecovision and Intellivision games, and the Nintendo was way better than all of them.

This is 100% the reason my family and friends were sold on the NES. The games looked freakin' incredible. No one wanted to be a square dot when they could be an arcade character.

[+thanatos]

On 4/24/2022 at 1:13 PM, Turbo-Torch said:

 

Lol.  I have a nephew who's only 4 years younger than me.  I remember being at his birthday party when he was turning 13.  He was expecting an NES, but my sister and brother-in-law cheaped out* and bought got him a 7800 instead.

The look on his face was priceless when he unwrapped it.  He was always a super nice kid and it was one of those deals where he was trying his best to look excited and appreciative while not crying at the same time.  His friends' smiles turned to instant frowns as the giftwrap came off.

Sorry, no SMB for you, you get Pole Position II instead woohoo!  

 

 

That's similar to my first time seeing a 7800.  A cousin got it for Christmas, when we already had NES at home.  "What the heck is this, a new Atari?  It kind of sucks!"  I don't think I knew the 7800 existed when we already had an NES.

 

[ChildOfCv]

What sold NES for me way back then was SMB and ExciteBike, both of which I had already played a lot as arcades.  It did bother me though that the NES wasn't an exact translation of the arcade though.  But for the first few levels, you'd hardly notice.  Sega took the cue from Nintendo and got some competitive traction with Sonic.  Gotta have a killer game or 2, or your system won't sell.

 

I've heard that Rob at least got Nintendo's foot in the door, but by the time I got the system it was no longer included.  Sadly, neither was the Zapper or SMB/Duck Hunt combo cartridge.

[Traxx]

Atari 7800 was kinda more of the same games I played on 2600,c64 ect...nes was a whole new gaming experience for me.Super Mario Bros,Castlevania,Mike Tyson's PunchOut ect...It made other systems games seem very old and outdated.

[fiddlepaddle]

I've never heard of cow letters before today. Very interesting idea.

At first reading, I assumed it meant cows lining up like a marching band at half time to spell out something.

It also brought to mind the image of cows writing notes and mailing them to each other.

Sounds like it just means bigger letters.

Perhaps cows need bigger print because they have bigger eyes?

Or maybe cow letters refer to big letters because cows are big, but if that's true, there should also be mouse letters and elephant letters.

I remember as a kid standing outside the fence of a roadside cow pasture and calling for one to come closer so I could pet it, which did not work. I heard that tapping on an aquarium makes fish nervous, so I bet banging on the fence makes cows nervous too. To my knowledge, I've never been able to attract the the attention of a cow, but I've never tried really big letters on a sign.

Are cows who live under big billboards more interested in the item being advertised than those who don't have big letters to read?

Cow letters are very interesting.

[8th lutz]

On 4/24/2022 at 3:36 PM, johannesmutlu said:

Well that’s a Pretty interesting fact,but i still wonder that if that atari 7800 was released in november/december of 1984,while it had been a success or would consumers just did had low interests in it as well?

also what would,ve happen had atari released their atari 5200 jr instead along with games such as donkeykong and donkeykong jr and pac land for it and possibly bundled just in case,would it had been a success? And would it had saved the 5200 from it’s grace?

we would probably never know but if atari did it, i might have bought the atari 5200 jr with all it’s nintendo games plus pac man and pac land for it on ebay instead,also since the 5200 has a pokey soundchip unlike the 7800,shame.

Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr would not be on the 5200 no matter the cause due to Coleco having the game console rights to the game and Coleco refused to publish games for 5200.

 

Atari 5200 Jr./Atari 5100 was going to come out in 1984 or late 1983. I don't know the date it was worked on, but I know it was canceled at some point before May of 1984. Pac-Land itself is a question mark for the Atari 5200 as game. The game itself can't be a part of bundle in 1984. Pac-land came out in the Arcades that year and usually game console ports usually don't happen in the same year as it was released in the arcade. What makes it a question mark is the potential cartridge size. The biggest 5200 game ever made for the 5200 on cartridge was 40k, but how much of it was cost. The best way to put cost for game cartridges is size of Intellivision homebrew games now compare to the 1980s. The homebrew games didn't use any additional hardware for games like Intellivania, but were bigger in game size. I don't think Pac-land was going to be a big hit for the 5200 if was possible. The popularity of the Pac-man games from 1980 to 1984 was at its peak with its first two games of the franchise.

 

What I do know is Track & Field, Stargate aka defender II, Jr. Pac-Man, A.E.(Computer game port), Blaster (arcade game port),Final Legacy(computer game port), The Last Star Fighter, Millipede, and Xevious were supposed to be released in 1984 for the 5200 since prototypes of them were found.

 

I don't think the 5200 Jr. would help much except for cost for sales. The controller to my understanding was a turnoff and I've tried the 5200 at the Midwest Gaming Classic in the past. Its not a great controller. What determines the improvement of sales is games and exclusive games. I know the 5200 had rumor mill games like Elevator Action, Crystal Castles, Krull(based on Arcade game) Food fight,  and Galaga. It depends on what else could've been planned for the 5200 if it was not discontinued in May of 1984 without the 7800 existing. 

 

The 5200 though would've been replaced in 1986 or 1987 by a newer Atari System that was going to be more powerful than the 7800. That means the 5200 would not doing a lot of post 1985 arcade game releases. I said more powerful than the 7800 because the 7800 was supposed to released in 1984 at $140.00 and Tramiel launch the system at much cheaper price in 1986. That means a more ram, better sound chip if released in 1986. The 5200 replaced in 1987 would be replaced by a system in specs similar to a Tg-16 or a game console with a 6800 processor. 

Edited April 26, 2022 by 8th lutz

[+save2600]

[dmckean]

What sold me (and my entire 5th grade class) was Metroid. 

 

I had played the NES some previously in store kiosks but in 5th grade we had a sleepover going away party for a kid that was moving and we all played NES together. Metroid was like nothing I had ever experienced before. It has atmosphere, one area would be loud with music blasting away and then you'd walk into a quite room and wonder 'what the fuck is going on here?' It was amazing.  

 

I think the 7800 and SMS were great pieces of hardware too, but they just didn't have the same quality of software library that the NES had. Some of this was due to Nintendo's illegal third party lock-in tactics, but at least half of the great titles on NES were first party Nintendo. 

[johannesmutlu]

On 4/23/2022 at 5:12 PM, johannesmutlu said:

It’s a miracle that the nes sold like hot cakes because,

 

1, the nes was not the first game console to be sold as an “entertainment system” because the video entertainment system(later recalled the fairchannel f) and the atari 5200 were also sold as an  advanced Video entertainment system,

2,nintendo games were also on other systems,

3,the nes was not that more powerful and not in everyway from other systems.

4,also from a price point both systems don’t differ that much,

5,while rob the robot somehow triggered consumers to wamna buy a nes among it’s 2 games,but ROB turned out to be very clumsy and unhandy to use(why using double A and see battery’s to run the robot, why could it not run from it’s own power supply instead??

6,also it’s a miracle that supermariobros became a trigger point as well for consumers to wanna buy a nes Considering pac land was eventually ported to the C64,amstrad cpc,m and atari xe etc,,,

also nintendo’s special relation with hudson soft allowed to make games with their ip’s for the pc88 including mariobros special,donkeykong 3,supermariobros special etc,,,

7,all thinks concidered the atari 7800 should,ve be the biggest threat against nintendo’s nes because not only was it slightly more advanced(apart from the infirior soundchip) but it also was backwards compatible with atari 2600 games and it’s controllers (something the nes didn’t have) and it did had good conversions of nintendo games on it as well,

the atari 7800 did had a much much more cooler sleeker design then the nes along with it’s better toploading cartride mechanism(the nes just looks like an giant old concreat brick,

8,also nintendo never sold(unlike in japan) a keyboard with famicom basic,cassette drive and a disk system in the us or eu,let alone coming with a set of it,wich they could,ve tried to convince stock markets and consummers that the nes was also a hybrid system just like the C64 (eventrough they did had a prototype avs nes system)

9,also atati’s 7800 super system did had a lockout chip to preven unautherized crappy games to be on their system as well,

10, the nes was not Z80 based as opposed to the colecovision,SG1000 and SG3000/mark3 (sega master system) but nintendo wanted to be sure that their arcade games could run on it then why opting for a 6502 chip instead? Apart from coleco It should,ve be the other way around ,but even more strange is that despite the nes was made with scrolling in mind,sky skipper was not ported to the nes but it was ported to the atari 2600 wich was never made with scrolling in mind,was it? (Who had ever tout that,a nintendo game on another system but never made it on it’s own system??)

also moon patrol was never ported to the nes but it was ported to the atari 2600 wich i found odd for the same technical reason,

11,sure nintendo did played an unfair monopoly with game developers but not all game developers jumped on board,

 

so these are the reason why i think why it is such miracle that the nes was a huge success,same thing with the gameboy since the game pocket system and microvision came before.

 

11,also i forget to mention that the nes was not the first console with a non-toploading mechanism,for instance the intelevision loaded games from it’s side loading system and the channel f also had just like the nes a frontloading system and the channel f looked more like a toploading cassette tape recorder rather then being a game console, so that nes resambled more like to be a vcr design along with it’s frontloading design is not something unique,except that it uses a ZIF system,but that zif loading system caused lot’s of problems later on,but despite these long term problems i didn’t stop the nes to be sold like hot cakes thanks nintendo’s ip’s such as metroid,zelda,kirby,icarius,ice climbers as well as strong thirt party games such as castlevania,mega men,duck tales,tmt turtles etc,,,

so it’s sadly no wonder that all it’s competitors faded into obscurity, nobody from my family whether they lived in sweden,germany,hallond or switserland owned an atari or coleco system,nope they all owned a nes,BUT i did atleast knew someone who owned a master system but that’s it,and even back then i didn’t like the master system that much it felt like just being an unfriendly system with games such as alex kidd with jump & kick buttons being swapped and ,or road fighter,fantasy zone mj moonwalker and choplifter being sooo hard as shit,i also hated that the pause was on the console itself rather then on the controller,alltrough i found those tunes from those mentioned master system games so funny that i was even huming those tunes on school or when i was under the shower,lol?

[Rhomaios]

4 hours ago, dmckean said:

I think the 7800 and SMS were great pieces of hardware too, but they just didn't have the same quality of software library that the NES had. Some of this was due to Nintendo's illegal third party lock-in tactics, but at least half of the great titles on NES were first party Nintendo. 

Yeah, I think a lot of people who get hung up on the illegal monopolistic practices miss this part. Nintendo was making killer first party games, and continued to do so for years thereafter. I'd probably say the GameCube era when they started go awry, but plenty of kids still like Nintendo games from that era, so maybe I was just too old.

[+frankodragon]

Maybe it just adds to the whole Cow Tools mystery? 

 

Not to mention cows have moved up the communicational trail.

[CMR]

If I'm not mistaken, ROB was partially created to help appease retailers who had been burned by the crash two years prior.  By the time everyone realized it was crap, it didn't matter.  I've even read interviews where Howard Lincoln talked about how hard it was to get retailers trust them even when the SNES came out because of the 83 crash.  So I don't think it was an accident or a miracle.  Nintendo had a lot of people working really hard to make the machine a success, and when you combine that with all the killer games they were putting out, it was pretty much inevitable. 

Also, don't feel too bad about all those companies tied into exclusive contracts with Nintendo.  They made a ton of money selling games on the NES, and many of the more popular games got released across multiple platforms regardless.  I think there are around ten different home versions of Contra out there.  One big thing to remember is how huge Mario was in the 80's and early 90's.  He was more popular than Mickey Mouse at one point.  That was something Sega didn't have until Sonic.

[johannesmutlu]

oh yeah i forget to mention that the nes was NOT the first system wuth a frontloading ZIF system,because the astrocade predates the nes by a whopping 7 years,and the intelevision loaded games from it’s side other then loading from the top as well,also the nes was not the first console to resamble another home device because both the astrocade and the channel f looked more like a front loading cassette tape player rather then looking like a game console,while the intelevision looked more like a wooden radio or external wooden tv tuner,

also the astrocade was very advanced for it’s time coming even close for what the nes was capable off and the intelevision even had a 10bit cpu in it(those 6 other bits were useless)

and before the nes aside from the us and europe, there were atleast 5 cartride based game consoles released predating the nes,including the cassette vision,intelevision,channel f ,visicom 100 and the magnovox oddysey etc,,,

sure many of those systems were probably outdated at the time but they still did had it’s potential,

and yes there were ever since 1983 the SG1000,the atari 2700 and the super cassette vision in 1984,but also those systems just couldn’t hold a candle against the famicom,whether it was a combination of bad and/or limited games,high prices and/or poor marketing,it’s still in some cases hard to believe that the famicom became a success ,also since a few japanese gamers did imported a us colecovision to play some nintendo games on it,

and i,ve not even talked about those computers in japan wich were released before and in 1983 including the pc88,vic20,C64 and the MSX computer in wich you also could play some nintendo games on it,so that’s why i am somewhat surprised about the famicom’s instant success,

 

so in conclusion was the nes really unique in it’s design,name and loading system and was supermariobros really unique as a game platformer???

no NOT as the media would let us want to believe no,yes it is true that nintendo REDEFINED those concepts of space panic for donkeykong,they redefined those concepts from hyglide for zelda,they redefined those concepts from pac land for supermariobros,but that’s it.

also we should not forget that the game pac man from namco did NOT contain original concepts because it was redefined from elements of sega head on,again another example that a top game could be derived from another albeit forgotten game,but as we all know,the media or a company could hide things and don’t want let you know about these things whether it’s a game console or a game,no, instead they both want to make you believe that those concepts from their game or game systems belonges to them wereas in reality it’s not other then being redefined elements of it from other previous systems or games,that’s why we should take everything with a grain of salt these day’s !!!!

[johannesmutlu]

The colevision might have been slightly less powerful and it might have been less successful then the nes,BUT it did had some of the greatest nintendo games on it among others,in fact nintendo could,ve decided to take over the colecovision instead since it was Z80 based just like their arcade machines, rather then going for a famicom wich was in average 6502 based,why? Becausevthey could,ve just almost straightly port more of their arcade games to it such as donkeykong 3,sky skipper,radar scope,sheriff,monkey magic,space launcher etc,, but sadly they didn’t and so to port donkeykong 3 to the nes they probably had to recompile Z80 code into 6502 code trough a compilor,then manually debug it,adjust it and call it the day,thing is i bet that even if nintendo took over the colecovision and put all of their franchises on it like metroid,supermariobros,ice climber,kid icarius etc,it still would,ve been a success,also imagine if nintendo used the expansion module for extra ram along with enhancement chips in their games,they still could,ve get around those limitations from the colecovision,the adam expansion addon proved to be very valueble in terms of graphical enhancements,if only coleco futher tested their adam against it’s flaws ,but either way those nintendo games turned those competitor systems into pure gold?

[fultonbot]

If Atari had stayed together as a single unit and part of huge media company like Warner, they might have stood a chance.   They would have bought the Amiga instead of Commodore, of course too, but that's a different thread.  There would have been a lot of money poured into a 7800 development team, and GCC would have been around to continue making amazing ports.  They would have figured out how to match or best Nintendo by adding the same type of extra memory/chips/etc. to 7800 carts that NES carts had.  We would have seen some great 8-bit computers games ported, like the ones from Synapse, EA, Origin, SSI, etc.  They still would have had to weather 1984/1985 when home computers and VCRs were all-the-rage, and video games had fallen out of favor, but by 1986, if they were determined to stick it out, a new set of kids would have been ready, and they could have prepared the Atari 15600 (maybe based on Lynx style 65SC02 + support chips, or maybe a stripped-down Atari Amiga game system, but definitely designed by Jay Miner et al), kept backwards compatibility, and ruled the Nintendoage with amazing games.  Nintendo might have even stayed away from the USA market, and Atari could have instead, licensed their games for the 15600 and Amiga.  There would have also been a ton of games to port from the Atari Amiga over to the 15600.  Then we could have played Mario, Zelda, The Bitmap Brothers games, The Bard's Tale, Gauntlet, and a legal Atari Tetris all on an Atari branded machine like good Lord Bushnell intended all along. 

[fiddlepaddle]

Once upon a time they all lived happily ever after.

[Cebus Capucinis]

2 hours ago, fiddlepaddle said:

Once upon a time they all lived happily ever after.

It's a miracle they did though, because I don't like them and the things I do like are better for..... reasons?

[+GoldLeader]

1.  If Atari had stayed together...

2. ???

3. They all lived happily ever after.

4.  Profit!

[Mockduck]

I was born in 74 so the NES hit at an important time in my cultural development, and to me and my friends at the time it felt like a whole different kind of video game we were playing. It felt like a generational leap from the games we'd been playing (Yar's, Pitfall!, etc. along with more "advanced" games on the Apple IIe and such), even if the reality was we mostly just hadn't been exposed to these kind of games earlier. Also, RPGs were a big deal; we'd been playing Wizardry and Ultima and such on PC and the NES felt like it was going to offer both a PC gaming and console experience. Finally, while I was a dumb kid, the NES felt specifically Japanese in a way that was appealing to folks like myself in the late 80's; it felt like we were seeing stories and games from a much different place than where I was living in the rural midwest. 

 

That said, even back in the day I remember thinking the NES wasn't built very well and seemed ready to break at any moment. The Ataris seemed much better built. I simply played whatever was available, as much as possible, on as much as possible, so what I played depended a lot on what parents bought their kids. 

[jd_1138]

17 minutes ago, Mockduck said:

I was born in 74 so the NES hit at an important time in my cultural development, and to me and my friends at the time it felt like a whole different kind of video game we were playing. It felt like a generational leap from the games we'd been playing (Yar's, Pitfall!, etc. along with more "advanced" games on the Apple IIe and such), even if the reality was we mostly just hadn't been exposed to these kind of games earlier. Also, RPGs were a big deal; we'd been playing Wizardry and Ultima and such on PC and the NES felt like it was going to offer both a PC gaming and console experience. Finally, while I was a dumb kid, the NES felt specifically Japanese in a way that was appealing to folks like myself in the late 80's; it felt like we were seeing stories and games from a much different place than where I was living in the rural midwest. 

 

That said, even back in the day I remember thinking the NES wasn't built very well and seemed ready to break at any moment. The Ataris seemed much better built. I simply played whatever was available, as much as possible, on as much as possible, so what I played depended a lot on what parents bought their kids. 

Yep the NES was a large leap from what I had been used to -- cousins' Atari 2600 and our own ColecoVision. I mean ColecoVision was pretty great for graphics, but the sheer number of great games on the NES made the NES better. CV had fewer games and fewer great games.

 

And for what $79 you could buy a complete system with a great pack-in game -- SMB. We got ours in 1987. I still remember how great the packaging smelled as I opened it up. 

 

Had the NES not existed, we would've gotten a 5200 or 7800. I totally get the part about the NES being cool in that it is Japanese. So you have all the cool Japanase pop culture and sci-fi/anime sorta behind the NES. 

 

And sure the computer systems of the era like Mac, Apple II, Tandy's, IBM clones, etc. may have been more powerful, but they were also like 10 times more pricey than a new NES. Unless you're talking a basic Tandy Color Computer which was 3-4 times more pricey than a NES by the time you bought a monitor, joystick.

 

 

 

 

[John Stamos Mullet]

On 4/24/2022 at 12:46 AM, thanatos said:

Atari 2600 owning kids (like me) saw Super Mario Brothers, Zelda and others, and were completely blown away.  It was an amazing graphics and sound improvement.  I was even familiar with with Colecovision and Intellivision games, and the Nintendo was way better than all of them.

 

I dunno. I was one of those and I saw the Sega Master System, and graphically it was head and shoulders above the NES. Those of us who were teenagers knew the difference. The NES looked too kidsy.  The 7800 had better arcade ports and then the SMS had both. 
 

it’s not a mystery to me why the NES won out, they marketed the shit out of it on afternoon UHF and Saturday morning Network Cartoons to the 6-10 year olds, and bought up all the shelf space at Toys R Us. Not because it was the better system.

[Rhomaios]

5 hours ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

I dunno. I was one of those and I saw the Sega Master System, and graphically it was head and shoulders above the NES. Those of us who were teenagers knew the difference. The NES looked too kidsy.  The 7800 had better arcade ports and then the SMS had both. 
 

it’s not a mystery to me why the NES won out, they marketed the shit out of it on afternoon UHF and Saturday morning Network Cartoons to the 6-10 year olds, and bought up all the shelf space at Toys R Us. Not because it was the better system.

The Nintendo came out almost a whole year before the Master System did (in the US, that is). Moreover, the NES beat Sega by two years in Japan, giving it a huge game library lead.

 

Graphically and sound-wise (when the developers wanted to take advantage of the FM chip), the Master System is superior, but it pales in the games department.

 

Things would have been very different if there were more cross-platform ports.