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It’s a miracle the nes sold like hot cakes


johannesmutlu

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21 hours ago, fiddlepaddle said:

So, to summarize, in Germany the NES sold like French Toast, and in Australia it sold like Brussels Sprouts.

Man, oven roasted brussels sprouts with aioli was all the rage for a hot minute in some of the trendy spots. I don't see it as often, but it's so good. If all you ever had was boiled brussels sprouts, then you've never had them at all. Sauteed or oven roasted and salted showed me a completely different side to the veggie, and they're damn delicious that way. Heck, I'd rather eat them raw than boiled.

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On 4/24/2022 at 12:45 PM, 8th lutz said:

I have to do a wall of text here.

 

You have your timeline wrong for the Test Market. The 7800 was test marketed in June of 1984, not late 1984. Late 1984 was supposed to be the national launch date, not the test market date before Jack Tramiel came into the picture.

 

Jack Tramiel did not complete the deal to buy the consumer division assets of Atari before July 1st, 1984. Tramiel ended the 1984 test market because Warner did not pay GCC for working on the 7800 game console and that meant Tramiel inherited it. There was an argument between Tramiel and Warner for who was going to pay GCC for developing the 7800 game console and GCC was not paid till May of 1985 for the Game Console. Tramiel had to do additional negotiations to GCC for paying them for the launch titles. The 3rd thing is Tramiel got a rid of a lot of people in 1984 when he bought the assets of the consumer division and that meant Tramiel had to hire a person to run the video game department.

 

Before you question me on Tramiel hiring a person for the video game department, what you have to understand Tramiel renamed Tramel Technology LTD to Atari Corporation after the purchase of the assets of Atari Consumer division. Tramiel founded Tramel Technology on May17th, 1984 with the plans of releasing a new computer after Jack left Commodore in January of 1984.  Tramel Technology LTD did not have a video game division before the purchase and that companies focus was on Computers. What Tramiel was doing was selling left over inventory of anything before the Atari ST came out and that meant he could do that without having a person in charge of a video game division since there was no new video games Atari Corporation was releasing before 1986. Additional proof Tramiel being interest in computers first is Tramiel not buying the Arcade division of Atari.

 

You also are ignoring huge flaw with Tramiel waiting till 1986 to release the 7800. The huge flaw is a good number of 7800 launch titles were somewhat dated in 1984 and became even more dated by releasing them in 1986. Having those titles go against the SMS and the NES in 1986 is going to look outdated due to what the SMS and the NES had in 1986.

 

I called the 1984 launch titles somewhat dated in 1984 because Joust, Ms. Pac-man, Robotron, Dig Dug, Centipede, and Asteroids were already released on other Atari game consoles. What 7800 could've had in 1986 was games like Marble Madness and Paperboy if the 7800 was released in 1984 and the arcade division was not split. Paperboy and Marble Madness in 1986 7800 releases wouldn't have been labeled as dated. Some of the 7800's computer ports in 1987 also could've been released before 1987.

 

What I am painting is the 7800 had games released later than they should've been due to when the system itself was released. Nintendo's contracts did play a role, but not for all games that were released on the 7800 such as Midnight Mutants. Games like Midnight Mutants would've been release in 1987, 1988 or even 1989 instead of 1990 if the 7800 was released in 1984.

 

I think that rumor turned out to be a rumor about Jack supposedly passing on Atari Coin/Games for an additional $10 million. The division supposedly owed royalties to Namco so it was more beneficial to Warner to sign over the majority ownership of it to Namco [and still retain a 10% to 25% stake] than offering it to Tramiel for just $10 million more than the sticker price of Atari Inc's Consumer Division's assets. Namco also took over the arcades Atari Coin owned outright. Plus, Warner had also sold the promising AtariTel division to Mitsubishi. 

 

There's no guarantee of Midnight Mutants or any of those other later titles appearing earlier and from "Atari". Those came about as a reaction to Nintendo's 3rd Party Developer catalog and were programmed out of Atari Corp's "Chicago" division which Michael Katz set up away from the Sunnyvale HQ. Katz wasn't at Atari Corp in 1984. He was recruited from the ashes of Coleco and ran the "Entertainment Electronics" "division" of Atari Corp from 1985 to right up until losing the US rights to the Sega Genesis. He then "retired" from Atari Corp and was recruited by Sega of Japan during that 1 month of limbo to take over as head of Sega of America and tasked with launching the Genesis here.

 

From the perspective of the 7800's potential success, it would've been better for Atari Inc to have survived intact or had it still been split up, then for the 7800 to go to Atari Coin/Games and then they could've marketed it as the Tengen 7800 with their exclusive arcade titles from 1984 on...plus Namco's titles. 

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On 4/24/2022 at 8:27 AM, ColecoGamer said:

Nice response! Well.. it’s all speculation whether Capcom or even Konami would have ported their games to the 7800, even if they hadn’t signed exclusive agreements with Nintendo.

 

As someone who grew up during the 1980s (and being very much a hardcore gamer), I can say with conviction that nobody I knew then looked fondly at the Atari 7800. In fact, Atari wasn’t even in their vocabulary. It was mostly Nintendo and Sega (for their Master System console).

 

I believe what put the nail in Atari’s coffin was when they advertised the Atari XE, and the commercial Atari had to promote it. The selling points they made in that ad were ridiculous - “We got REAL joysticks” and “Bug Hunt!”. Duck Hunt was a popular phenomenon at the time, and it was arcade quality. Bug Hunt looked terrible and stiff in the commercial. This proved how out of touch Atari was with modern console gaming at the time.

 

Here’s the commercial (which aired in 1987) as proof of what I said:

 

 

No child who wanted an 8-bit NES was excited about having a floppy drive or a keyboard either. My friends would laugh every time this commercial aired on television.

 

That's a one-sided opinion. Plenty of us kids who grew up with the 2600 disliked the NES gamepad and thought it was a joke. The only reason why so many of "us" of those GenXers went with the NES was due to its library, not because of its controller. There were also several market research studies that indicated a lot of consumers wanted joysticks; that's why that Atari XEGS commercial emphasizes it.

 

The Atari XEGS Light Gun [aka the "XG-1" separately] was not as accurate as the NES Zapper or the Sega Phaser. Bug Hunt was terrible. It's too bad nobody at Atari Corp was apparently aware of the old Atari coin-op game Qwak! - from, what, 1976? - which Nintendo's Duck Hunt is a rip-off of, otherwise, they could've made a version of it for the XEGS and the 7800.  Duck Hunt was responsible for selling quite a lot of NES consoles.

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On 4/24/2022 at 3:45 PM, ColecoGamer said:

That may be true for you, and that’s fine by me. Unfortunately, the best games the NES had to offer were not only numerous, but Nintendo itself would never (and still won’t even today) allow their Super Mario franchise on competing hardware. The Mario Bros game in that poster wasn’t even on most kid’s radars back then. In fact, it’s not even related to the Super Mario Bro. franchise. Sure, the game has Mario and Luigi in it, but its nothing like Super Mario Bros on the NES.

 

Someone has said this already, but Nintendo had tremendous marketing prowess in the 80s. Even ‘if’ the 7800 had every NES game in its library, Nintendo’s marketing still would have attracted 80s kids to the NES system. Remember Robbie the Robot? Robots were big back then as most know. Robbie was just one of many reasons kids wanted the system. Well, until it was discovered that Robbie could cause health issues in children.

 

ROB was a useless gimmick. And Atari Inc had plans of marketing the Atari AndroMan robot prior to the breakup of Atari Inc. AndroMan was developed by both Atari Inc and Nolan Bushnell's Androbot company. So once again, people attribute something to Nintendo that Atari actually pioneered. [albeit didn't make it to market thanks to The Crash].

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I can’t believe i only bought this game being factory sealed for only $23 (excluding shipping costs) but what’s also inthrowing me is that freaking AWESOME atari poster that came included with it,wich also does show mario,luigi and donkeykong in it,just WOOOOW if i saw this as a kid i would,ve shit my pants,and off course at the back of that atari poster you also do see 3 mario games,

also do like how atari does show both the atari 2600 jr,ataro xe and the atari 7800 on it,am mean atari did tryed hard and outdone their selfes really hard to form a serious threat against nintendo,BUT the 7800 just only sold 1/20th of what the nes did sold,hack even the atari 2600 only sold half the amount of units and what the nes did sold despite having the longest lifespan of any video game console(yes 30 million sold atari 2600 systems is absolutely a respectible number also considering it’s time when it did came out) but it just blows my mind how nintendo was able to sell a whopping 61 million nes systems,(yes nintendo did played a false monopoly game with retailers and game developers by taking away their free will) hence the amount of nes games and sold nes systems for it but still i just can’t held how it just blows my mind considering what atari did,it reminds me of giant goliat against david or israel against all arabic nations, it all started small but became a giant tumor against their enemy’s am mean whoooaaah,

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8 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

It's too bad nobody at Atari Corp was apparently aware of the old Atari coin-op game Qwak! - from, what, 1976? - which Nintendo's Duck Hunt is a rip-off of, otherwise, they could've made a version of it for the XEGS and the 7800.

Did Atari Corp get the rights to all the pre-1984 arcade games, or did the rights stay with Atari Games?

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11 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

 

That's a one-sided opinion. Plenty of us kids who grew up with the 2600 disliked the NES gamepad and thought it was a joke. The only reason why so many of "us" of those GenXers went with the NES was due to its library, not because of its controller. There were also several market research studies that indicated a lot of consumers wanted joysticks; that's why that Atari XEGS commercial emphasizes it.

 

The Atari XEGS Light Gun [aka the "XG-1" separately] was not as accurate as the NES Zapper or the Sega Phaser. Bug Hunt was terrible. It's too bad nobody at Atari Corp was apparently aware of the old Atari coin-op game Qwak! - from, what, 1976? - which Nintendo's Duck Hunt is a rip-off of, otherwise, they could've made a version of it for the XEGS and the 7800.  Duck Hunt was responsible for selling quite a lot of NES consoles.

My comment would be lopsided and one-sided if it was my opinion and my opinion alone. I had many friends growing up and I spoke on their feelings regarding Atari; its a ‘real’ fact whether you like to hear it or not.

 

Despite how this opinion will upset people, it’s true - a lot of people exposed to the NES and Sega Master System saw Atari as ‘behind’ the curve in understanding what people wanted from gaming.

 

And yes, the NES’ software library sold the system (I even stated this in a earlier post of mine), due to how genre defining they were. If Atari had focused on getting better third-party support for their console - which contained a lot of old arcade ports, in an industry where genre-defining games like Castlenania existed on NES  - maybe Atari would have succeeded. I use the Atari Jaguar as an example of this - instead of working with third-party developers to guarantee games that were popular with people at the time (i.e. Mortal Kombat, Earthworm Jim, etc) - they instead released Missile Command, Defender, and Breakout. All great games in their own right, but all were cherished by much older gamers, and not with the younger demographic at the time.
 

Real arcade-like joysticks did exist for the NES; they were called the NES Advantage.
 

My truth is based on real-life events involving my friends and those I met back then. Attempting to truncate this truth because you were among the minority who hated the NES is absolutely moot. 

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I would also like to add that I love Atari and its consoles/computers.

 

My response was based on my personal experiences with my friends, etc., in response to the OP. Plus, as some know - my main comment was about the NES’ library of genre-defining games, which made the NES a hit in households everywhere. It wasn’t to discount anyone who felt differently about the NES or how they may have preferred an Atari console instead.

 

My personal experiences aside, I only stated known historical facts about why the NES succeeded, while Atari unfortunately failed. 
 

I realize some people feel bitter about this topic, and I understand why.

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The only thing I have to add is that I, like many others, was enticed by the NES in 1987.

 

At that time, to me Atari was dead.  I hadn't heard about the 7800 nor was I ever into the computer line as my parents were not rich and the thought of spending hundreds of dollars on a computer toy and its costly peripherals just wasn't going to happen.
Many of my friends and their parents just assumed that gaming was dead after 1984 since we rarely saw new games or hardware in the local department stores.  But yet, we continued to play our 2600s faithfully and still enjoyed going to arcades, so the love was still there.

 

Then one day, the NES Deluxe Set and corresponding demo kiosk appeared in our town's department store and we were absolutely in awe.  The games were plentiful.  They looked good.  The controllers were kind of weird, but we made do and adapted to them.  In short, to us and our parents, it looked like gaming was back and our interest was peaked.

I didn't have any affinity for Nintendo or its brands back then, but I did enjoy the various franchises and whatnot. 
But there was also much disappointment along the way...we received many of the Kay Bee bargain bin games (Alpha Mission, Athena, Ninja Kid, Tag Team Wrestling, etc) as gifts and they comprised much of our collections.  These were dull and flawed games, and very empty experiences.  Just like the early Capcom games like Commando with their weird glitching/disappearing enemy sprites, these games lacked polish and overall execution.  Yes, there were the usual classics that every retro nerd yammers on and on about, but the bulk of my NES gaming experiences was dealt playing the shittier side of its library.  

And games like Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros and Excitebike were LACKING in comparison to the arcade versions.  Again, hollow experiences that made you wonder about the true power of the NES when it couldn't even give you the same experience that you got at the local arcade.  I found the Zapper to be a pain in the ass to use with its stiff trigger and noticeable screen flashing, plus ROB was a useless pile of plastic. 

 

Granted, Nintendo did help pull the industry out of its doldrums, but 8 year old me would have absolutely preferred the 7800 or the XEGS since I had a love and familiarity for Atari and its great pedigree of games.  I don't regret having the NES, but like everything else these days, people who weren't even there during the true heyday are the ones who seem to lavish so much praise on it.  Of course that's easy to do today, since you can access the entire library and filter out the 80% of the library that sucks.  But it was different in my day and my experiences reflect a more disappointed tone. 

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18 minutes ago, Leonard Smith said:

The only thing I have to add is that I, like many others, was enticed by the NES in 1987.

...

 my experiences reflect a more disappointed tone. 

While I was Never disappointed in the NES,

 

There are certainly those who are picking and choosing their memories here...Also it's easy to clump together all of the memories, and choose to remember either the good or the bad.  Showing all of the old black label boxes reminds us that the NES didn't just appear with all of the latest and greatest...Those who got in early (and it's much smaller numbers to be sure) would see more of an evolution from Atari to NES...

 

I will still contend however,  that the NES didn't really pick up steam until about 1988...Early adopters got in in 1987,  with just the tiniest few getting in earlier.  Yes,  it existed earlier, but a whole lot of us either didn't know about it, or were focusing on other things, (cars, heavy metal, even computers)...And in my case,  I barely remember the 7800 at all.  I have a vague memory of seeing one on store shelves,  then noticing the games.  And it all struck me as old...Even having a few newer arcade games might have made me take notice,  but instead I forgot about it as soon as I saw it...

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On 6/26/2022 at 6:19 AM, roots.genoa said:

Things are not either a success or a flop ffs. The NES was not a 'flop' in Europe. It had a rough start, sure. In the end (in the 90s, with the TMNT game, SMB3, etc.) it probably sold (a little) more than the SMS in Europe as a whole. Don't forget that the SNES was only released in 1992 here. I heard they imported a lot more US systems in the UK for obvious reasons, but Europe is not just the UK. ?

As an example of this: the NES had virtually zero impact on the Irish market.  Ignoring the fact that Nintendo didn't bother with selling them there until 1990 (and even then, at only one location in the country), once they did they were virtually unsellable.  Buying a game system that cost as much as or more than a computer and also required purchasing cartridges that retailed for considerably more than disk- or tape-based software pretty much killed it.

 

IMHO, it wasn't until the PS1 hit the market that we saw gaming consoles in Europe really take off, and in a way that was reasonably similar across the entire continent.  It absolutely took a few years for that to solidify, but it did seem to be roughly the point where things as we know them now started to take shape.

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On 6/28/2022 at 6:32 AM, zzip said:

Did Atari Corp get the rights to all the pre-1984 arcade games, or did the rights stay with Atari Games?

 

Atari Corp had the rights to arcade games up to 1984. I knew Marble Madness was released in 1984 but I wasn't sure when so I looked it up. It was released in December 1984 so Atari Games kept the home rights since Atari Consumer was separated and sold to TTL ["Atari Corp"] in July 1984.

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On 6/28/2022 at 10:12 AM, ColecoGamer said:

My comment would be lopsided and one-sided if it was my opinion and my opinion alone. I had many friends growing up and I spoke on their feelings regarding Atari; its a ‘real’ fact whether you like to hear it or not.

 

Despite how this opinion will upset people, it’s true - a lot of people exposed to the NES and Sega Master System saw Atari as ‘behind’ the curve in understanding what people wanted from gaming.

 

And yes, the NES’ software library sold the system (I even stated this in a earlier post of mine), due to how genre defining they were. If Atari had focused on getting better third-party support for their console - which contained a lot of old arcade ports, in an industry where genre-defining games like Castlenania existed on NES  - maybe Atari would have succeeded. I use the Atari Jaguar as an example of this - instead of working with third-party developers to guarantee games that were popular with people at the time (i.e. Mortal Kombat, Earthworm Jim, etc) - they instead released Missile Command, Defender, and Breakout. All great games in their own right, but all were cherished by much older gamers, and not with the younger demographic at the time.
 

Real arcade-like joysticks did exist for the NES; they were called the NES Advantage.
 

My truth is based on real-life events involving my friends and those I met back then. Attempting to truncate this truth because you were among the minority who hated the NES is absolutely moot. 

 

And obviously, your friends weren't part of the market research focus groups which informed Atari Corp of the majority dislike of gamepads in relation to traditional joysticks. I was 11 when the NES came out in December 1985. The only thing I liked about its game pads were its dual fire buttons. Nintendo "thumb" became a real issue. I wasn't won over by game pads until the Sega Genesis game pads and the Atari Lynx I's pad. They were more comfortable than Nintendo's controllers. And the true reason why Nintendo created them in the first place is because they were cheaper to manufacture and ship than joysticks, not due to them allegedly being superior controllers from a gamer's perspective and experience.

 

You bring up third-party companies to use against the 7800. That's rich considering Nintendo had locked up just about every potential third-party company into exclusive agreements which prohibited them from licensing or selling games to any other system for a period of 1-3 years. It didn't just impact Atari Corp; it also  impacted INTV, Sega, and NEC.

 

Likewise, Atari Corp *DID* work with third-party developers for the Jaguar [and also with previous consoles]. You might want to contact Bill Rehbok if you don't want to take my word for it since he was in charge of that. He later ended up at SCEA after Atari Corp's implosion. Sam Tramiel was very hot for Mortal Kombat III to be made for the Jaguar. But WMS Industries had a wait-and-see attitude about providing that title to the Jag. And even before that, Michael Katz worked with third-party developers for the 2600, 7800, and XE Game System before he departed from the company to become the head of Sega of America. But there was only so much that could be done with the majority of the companies locked into illegal exclusive contracts with Nintendo of America.

 

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On 6/28/2022 at 11:57 AM, Leonard Smith said:

The only thing I have to add is that I, like many others, was enticed by the NES in 1987.

 

At that time, to me Atari was dead.  I hadn't heard about the 7800 nor was I ever into the computer line as my parents were not rich and the thought of spending hundreds of dollars on a computer toy and its costly peripherals just wasn't going to happen.
Many of my friends and their parents just assumed that gaming was dead after 1984 since we rarely saw new games or hardware in the local department stores.  But yet, we continued to play our 2600s faithfully and still enjoyed going to arcades, so the love was still there.

 

Then one day, the NES Deluxe Set and corresponding demo kiosk appeared in our town's department store and we were absolutely in awe.  The games were plentiful.  They looked good.  The controllers were kind of weird, but we made do and adapted to them.  In short, to us and our parents, it looked like gaming was back and our interest was peaked.

I didn't have any affinity for Nintendo or its brands back then, but I did enjoy the various franchises and whatnot. 
But there was also much disappointment along the way...we received many of the Kay Bee bargain bin games (Alpha Mission, Athena, Ninja Kid, Tag Team Wrestling, etc) as gifts and they comprised much of our collections.  These were dull and flawed games, and very empty experiences.  Just like the early Capcom games like Commando with their weird glitching/disappearing enemy sprites, these games lacked polish and overall execution.  Yes, there were the usual classics that every retro nerd yammers on and on about, but the bulk of my NES gaming experiences was dealt playing the shittier side of its library.  

And games like Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros and Excitebike were LACKING in comparison to the arcade versions.  Again, hollow experiences that made you wonder about the true power of the NES when it couldn't even give you the same experience that you got at the local arcade.  I found the Zapper to be a pain in the ass to use with its stiff trigger and noticeable screen flashing, plus ROB was a useless pile of plastic. 

 

Granted, Nintendo did help pull the industry out of its doldrums, but 8 year old me would have absolutely preferred the 7800 or the XEGS since I had a love and familiarity for Atari and its great pedigree of games.  I don't regret having the NES, but like everything else these days, people who weren't even there during the true heyday are the ones who seem to lavish so much praise on it.  Of course that's easy to do today, since you can access the entire library and filter out the 80% of the library that sucks.  But it was different in my day and my experiences reflect a more disappointed tone. 

 

I don't understand how someone back then hadn't heard of the Atari 7800. Toys R Us carried it in its stores. So did Kay Bee. Sears had it in their catalogs. Electronic Game Player/Electronic Gaming Monthly, GamePro, Video Games & Computer Entertainment, and other magazines covered its limited - compared to the NES - releases [hell, EGM was actually positive at the time to it]. Even their weak television commercials were advertised during afternoon syndicated cartoons in most television markets at the time...especially from 1987-1988.

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On 6/28/2022 at 1:57 PM, Leonard Smith said:

The only thing I have to add is that I, like many others, was enticed by the NES in 1987.

I was interested in the NES and more or less followed along and watched the scene. I never got much into it. I was too distracted trying to make the Amiga fit into my work and play style. Only so much time to go around ya'll know. And I was beginning to eye PCs, what with 286/386 rigs entering my sphere of consciousness, just didn't have the desire to stay stuck in cartridges..

 

On 6/28/2022 at 1:57 PM, Leonard Smith said:

At that time, to me Atari was dead.  I hadn't heard about the 7800 nor was I ever into the computer line as my parents were not rich and the thought of spending hundreds of dollars on a computer toy and its costly peripherals just wasn't going to happen.

Totally agree. I knew little if anything about the 7800, and only learned of it after it was already on the market for some time. I was luck to have gotten An Atari 400 (then 800) not long after I got an Apple II.

 

My parents and grandparents were big into seeing me with a computer, vs the game consoles. Come to think of it I remember wanting a TRS-80 at first. And went back and forth between it and an Apple II. That I could only have one to start of with they guided me to the Apple II stating the color graphics big-ass number of chips in the machine as positive selling points. Said I'd be bored with TRS-80 low-res crap.

 

For technically idiotic grups, they were amazingly right. It didn't take much convincing however.. I was thrilled to high heaven. And then once again when I was able to get a Disk II drive. And thereafter every few months a new peripheral.

 

Interestingly, of the Trinity, when I first saw a PET at Olson Electronics on (Golf & Higgins) I had ZERO desire to want to have one in the house. Not because of anything wrong with the machine. I just didn't see a use for it. But 2 years later ZOMG! I was all over home micros! Starting by idolizing the KIM-1.

 

The 7800, for me, was on the decline and dead-cat bounce of "me owning cartridge systems". Too little too late. No spunk like the 2600. No magic like the Apple II. Just another iteration of everything I already experienced before. There just wasn't enough of it.

 

On 6/28/2022 at 1:57 PM, Leonard Smith said:

Many of my friends and their parents just assumed that gaming was dead after 1984 since we rarely saw new games or hardware in the local department stores.  But yet, we continued to play our 2600s faithfully and still enjoyed going to arcades, so the love was still there.

Yes mine were the same way. Sadly I did not stick with the 2600 or any other cartridge systems. It was Apple II on out. Then Amiga & Apple II. Then Apple II & PC to today. But I still stuck with the Arcade scene till mid-90's. Completely tapering off by 2000.

 

Arcade interest waned partly because of those dumbass fighting games. They don't take any skill, just a bunch of mindless pounding and slapping.

 

And I had long grown tired of the 3 lives, hi-score, increasing difficulty, model.. yawn.. It was about this time that I fully appreciated computer games having more depth. And sandbox games having a steady difficulty level while the objective was to explore and create.

 

The (my) resurgence of classic gaming interest came very nebulously and slowly with the advent of emulation. It was unsteady progress and interest because everything was so new and I didn't have a clue to how robustly it would evolve. But evolve it did!  Many modern day emulators (stand alone and multiple machine) are sophisticated examples of coding and practically a mini OS in and of themselves.

 

On 6/28/2022 at 1:57 PM, Leonard Smith said:

Then one day, the NES Deluxe Set and corresponding demo kiosk appeared in our town's department store and we were absolutely in awe.  The games were plentiful.  They looked good.  The controllers were kind of weird, but we made do and adapted to them.  In short, to us and our parents, it looked like gaming was back and our interest was peaked.

Retail presence and stock availability is a huge plus when getting a console going and building an ecology and market. Nintendo's presence felt much like 1977-1978 Atari - where you could travel to 5 different department stores in a 10 mile radius, with each one having a big selection. Not like the crowdfunding shit of indie consoles today. Ugh!

 

On 6/28/2022 at 1:57 PM, Leonard Smith said:

Granted, Nintendo did help pull the industry out of its doldrums, but 8 year old me would have absolutely preferred the 7800 or the XEGS since I had a love and familiarity for Atari and its great pedigree of games.  I don't regret having the NES, but like everything else these days, people who weren't even there during the true heyday are the ones who seem to lavish so much praise on it.  Of course that's easy to do today, since you can access the entire library and filter out the 80% of the library that sucks.  But it was different in my day and my experiences reflect a more disappointed tone. 

While Atari was declining, and regurgitating their 8-bit stuff, I kept asking myself "Why?" Why can't Atari do this or this or that. They had become ineffective at moving the market after 1983/1984. The so-called crash & reorganization of the market couldn't have come enough. Clear out the crap and make way for a company (Nintendo in this case) that would make games based on something different than recycling old IP and repackaging 1970's tech. Shit. That's what the 5200 was, recycled stuff from the 70's!

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1 hour ago, Leonard Smith said:

First time I saw the 7800 was around 1988.  The first issue of EGM I saw was in 1989.
Prior to that, I don't recall seeing them in Toys R Us nor did I see commercials for it as we didn't have cable.

 

Geography may have also had something to do with it.

One of the ways I learned of the 7800 (not necessarily the 1st however) was through the Atari single-sheet poster catalogs. I was interested in it naturally. But when I compared the numbers, 2600 - 5200 - 7800, I was expecting something better than all that had come before. Not some nebulous specification wafting around. Especially for 1987! I expected a faster processor, better than TIA-sound, more capable graphics than the computers, more memory, bigger cartridges. Instead I saw design full of cost-cutting and just-get-by-enough to be called new.

 

But NES was different and continued to push boundaries. I liked that. I respected that. Atari's only remaining reputation was their coin-op division.

 

 

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12 hours ago, Keatah said:

Clear out the crap and make way for a company (Nintendo in this case) that would make games based on something different than recycling old IP and repackaging 1970's tech. Shit. That's what the 5200 was, recycled stuff from the 70's!

As opposed to?   Even the 68000 was a 1970s design, and that was used into the 90s.   The 5200 tech was about three years old when it was released.  By the time the NES got popular in the US, the NES was already 4-5 years old and still based on 70s CPU tech.

 

The lack of IP post-1984 was the real problem for Atari Corp, as well as lack of marketing muscle.

 

14 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

I don't understand how someone back then hadn't heard of the Atari 7800. Toys R Us carried it in its stores. So did Kay Bee. Sears had it in their catalogs. Electronic Game Player/Electronic Gaming Monthly, GamePro, Video Games & Computer Entertainment, and other magazines covered its limited - compared to the NES - releases [hell, EGM was actually positive at the time to it]. Even their weak television commercials were advertised during afternoon syndicated cartoons in most television markets at the time...especially from 1987-1988.

I suppose it depended where you looked.   I knew about the 7800 after the announcement in 84,  but then after it finally got released in 86, it was easy to forget it was out there.   I can't recall ever seeing a TV ad for it, by that time I wasn't reading videogame magazines, and I only recall seeing it in Kay Bee. 

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On 6/28/2022 at 7:12 PM, ColecoGamer said:

My comment would be lopsided and one-sided if it was my opinion and my opinion alone. I had many friends growing up and I spoke on their feelings regarding Atari; its a ‘real’ fact whether you like to hear it or not.

 

Despite how this opinion will upset people, it’s true - a lot of people exposed to the NES and Sega Master System saw Atari as ‘behind’ the curve in understanding what people wanted from gaming.

 

And yes, the NES’ software library sold the system (I even stated this in a earlier post of mine), due to how genre defining they were. If Atari had focused on getting better third-party support for their console - which contained a lot of old arcade ports, in an industry where genre-defining games like Castlenania existed on NES  - maybe Atari would have succeeded. I use the Atari Jaguar as an example of this - instead of working with third-party developers to guarantee games that were popular with people at the time (i.e. Mortal Kombat, Earthworm Jim, etc) - they instead released Missile Command, Defender, and Breakout. All great games in their own right, but all were cherished by much older gamers, and not with the younger demographic at the time.
 

Real arcade-like joysticks did exist for the NES; they were called the NES Advantage.
 

My truth is based on real-life events involving my friends and those I met back then. Attempting to truncate this truth because you were among the minority who hated the NES is absolutely moot. 

WoooW i didn’t know about atari’s qwak arcade game thanks for mentioning that,but too bad it was not that successful and there weren’t even ports of it(wich that game definitely does deserve) but it did let to nintendo’s inspiration to create duck hunt for the famicom a whopping 10 years later wich did became a huge success,

no matter how unfair it sounds but consider nintendo just had the luck on it’s side,

 

1,donkeykong inspirated from space panic,it became a success,

2,supermariobros inspirated from pac land,but it became a success,

3,duck hunt as mentioned wich was inspirated from qwak but became a success,

4,legenda of zelda was inspirated from hydlide but became a success,

5,the nes was inspirated from the atari 2600 and probably also the atari 5200 and colecovision etc,,but it juat outnumbered those systems in sales,

6,the gameboy was inspired from both the microvision and the game pocket computer,but again it just outnumbered those systems in sales,

Etc,,, etc,,,

but who knows what kind more of things we will know in the future from nintendo to be NOT original and thus NOT their idea at all.

 

 

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On 6/14/2022 at 4:12 PM, Jaden (JRH) said:

Europeans when you tell them that the NES was successful

tgwtg-that-guy-with-the-glasses.gif.20b8ee326de5c3b991f152868b7c6328.gif

 

Before anyone gets mad at me, this is only a joke. :))))))

Given that there are European YouTubers who are happy to let it be believed that the NES was as significant in Europe as it was in America (and Nintendo is more than happy for them to do so), it's an understandable reaction.  Viewers' eyeballs are becoming worn-out from all of the rolling.

 

(Joke not missed; delayed reply due to travel.)

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3 hours ago, Keatah said:

Nintendo knew how to do what Atari forgot.

To Nintendo's credit, they saw a gap in the market and very successfully exploited it.

 

The hardware didn't have to be the most amazing available and neither did the games, though the NES certainly had its share of excellent titles.  It just had to be there at the right time in the right place with a decent marketing budget.

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I find it funny that someone would think it a miracle and that since at least the Gamecube people have been predicting the end of Nintendo.

 

Yet here we are with the Switch.

 

The black box games are not the ones IMO that made the NES. Those were like the games in between the Atari arcades games and the new ones that evolved into what is more modern.

 

If NES stuck with similar type black box games I don't think it would have been as popular. The 7800 was basically a rehashed 2600 with better graphic capability.

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