NES Versus Atari VCS

[Rob Mitchell]

Do NES have this?

 

1017088[/snapback]

 

 

I wish that I had bought a sheet of these stamps! Oh the nostalgia for 33 cent stamps!

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

Edited February 17, 2006 by Rob Mitchell

[sandmountainslim]

Ok,

Let's phrase it like this.

Which system had the most impact on culture?

I can recall that the Atari was absolutely HUGE when I was a kid and the topic of many conversations but I recall an equal if not greater popularity for the NES. What say ye??

WP

[Ryanw]

This is a tough question, but from my experience I think the public probably relates more to the Atari 2600. My father and mother aren't gamers, but the day I purchased a 2600, they stopped what they were doing to play Pitfall (dad) and Ms. Pacman (mom). My NES was always out because I had 100x more games for it but I can't recall when either asked if they could pop in Mario or anything.

 

I've got to think that the NES wins out among gamers though, but its a tough call.

[sandmountainslim]

I tell you the Atari's greatest advantage over the NES for me right now is that apparently you cannot buy new homebrew carts for it and as we know the Atari Homebrew Cart Scene is wide open here on AA. I love playing my old NES games but would probably care for the console more if I could get three or four NEW games on cart every year.

WP

[DracIsBack]

The NES would have way more nostalgia for me if they were built better and I didn't have to fight with it every time I wanted to play an NES game. :-(

 

Yeah, I know there are emulators, but it's not the same to me ...

[atarian63]

In the public's eye, there's no question. NES wins.

depends on the age of the person being asked, at 44 I did not care for the NES. So to me it was kind of a bastard.An accident of circumstances.

[Karyyk]

Which system had the most impact on culture?

I can recall that the Atari was absolutely HUGE when I was a kid and the topic of many conversations but I recall an equal if not greater popularity for the NES.

 

I have to go with Atari on that one. Without having paved the way, would the NES have succeeded like it did? Without the popularity it spawned on the home market, would companies like Nintendo and Sega have put as much as they did into the home video games market? We don't know for sure, but if there was no Atari (or if the VCS had failed), there's no telling where gaming would be at this point. It became a viable market, and that's what spurred the advancement of the technology into what it's become. There are a lot of "what ifs" with this question, but I think you have to give Atari their due.

 

On a personal level, I have to go with Atari. I'm almost 30 now, but I got my first console when I was 8...Christmas of 86. A lot of people had the NES by this time, but my family was and is working class, so they went with the $50 Atari 2600 Jr. and a few games (Space Invaders, Battlezone and Chopper Command). When everyone was playing Super Mario Bros. I was cutting my teeth on an almost 10 year old console, and frankly, I was loving it. The games were cheap and still commonplace in toy stores, I could get a Gemstick for it for $3 at K-Mart and it generally was just a good time all the way around. Sure, I saw everyone with their NES, and I would have loved to play SMB (I'd get one in a couple of years), but the 2600 was my first love. Good times...

[atarian63]

I'm sorry - but how do hate an entire SYSTEM of games? It makes no sense. The NES has a ton of games the 2600 had to begin with, Pacman, MsPacman, Joust, Donkey Kong, Popeye...

 

I understand preferring the 2600 - but I don't see how you hate games based on the platform they were released on. Does anyone else actually dislike games based on platform?

Sure you can, like for the most part I could never get into C64 games, just hated the whole system it just felt cheap and crappy. The Atari computer was it for me. My store sold both back in the day and I owned a few C64's with pretty much unlimited access to games, I never had the C64 set up for very long, it would always end up back in my store in the used pile. Just my opinion.

[+doctorclu]

NES revived the game industry, and everyone knows Mario.

 

Of course, Mario was on the Atari systems first.

 

Whenever a video game is played in Tv shows throughout the years, what do we hear? 2600 Pac-Man and 2600 Donkey Kong sound effects.

 

So that is the overal. Now me personally, I'm voting Atari 2600. Really there is nothing I really have to play anymore, but I have to admit, it was fun, and they are built really well. I have to agree about the load problems with the NES.. I've experienced it too.

[accousticguitar]

Before Atari, all you could do with tv was watch it. When Atari came along, you could play games on it. What an incredible, amazing thing it was! After playing Atari at a friends house, I had to have one. My parents gave me 2 options: work for it, or go without. I worked for weeks limbing lodgepole pine (my dad ran the chainsaw and the whole family chipped in on the labor) until we had enough money to buy the Atari along with Space Invaders. The Atari cost $150 and I think Space Invaders was $20. It took a lot of 12 foot poles to buy my first video game. Now I ask, how can the NES compete with that memory? Actually, I never liked the NES controllers, and I never liked their games (other than Duck Hunt and Super Mario Brothers). I don't like side scrollers at all. I never played Zelda though; I might have liked that one.

[jetset]

Before Atari, all you could do with tv was watch it.

 

 

 

...And you had to walk to school 3 miles each way in 2 ft of snow and you LIKED it!

 

Damn man you just dated yourself there.

[Recycled]

Had to go with the vcs. Very unscientific...but I never I wasn't playing video games in the NES era. I had quit for a while.

[accousticguitar]

Before Atari, all you could do with tv was watch it.

 

 

 

...And you had to walk to school 3 miles each way in 2 ft of snow and you LIKED it!

 

Damn man you just dated yourself there.

Fortunately, school was too far to walk to. I had to take the horse and buggy.

 

I also remember no VCRs, microwaves, and computers. Just tv, but at least it was color.

[A Sprite]

Simple test.

 

Find a random crowd of varying ages and backgrounds. Find an instrument.

 

Play the theme from "Pitfall 2."

 

Play the theme from "Super Mario Bros."

 

Observe.

 

There's no question which system inspires more nostalgia in America and Japan.

 

And that's as it should be. Atari got us started, but Nintendo kept us going.

 

Btw: If you had asked what system I was the most nostalgic for - the Dreamcast isn't on the list. Neither is the Neo Geo Pocket.

 

We need a new thread...

[accousticguitar]

Simple test.

 

Find a random crowd of varying ages and backgrounds. Find an instrument.

 

Play the theme from "Pitfall 2."

 

Play the theme from "Super Mario Bros."

 

Observe.

 

There's no question which system inspires more nostalgia in America and Japan.

You are comparing an R4 Atari cart to the most popular NES game ever. Of course Nintendo would win that one.

[A Sprite]

Simple test.

 

Find a random crowd of varying ages and backgrounds. Find an instrument.

 

Play the theme from "Pitfall 2."

 

Play the theme from "Super Mario Bros."

 

Observe.

 

There's no question which system inspires more nostalgia in America and Japan.

You are comparing an R4 Atari cart to the most popular NES game ever. Of course Nintendo would win that one.

 

Use any original 2600 music score.

 

Or any 2600 sound effect.

 

Keep in mind, most of the 2600's biggest titles were ports of games developed outside of Atari. And that Atari wasn't the biggest supporter of quality control in it's own products.

 

Few people are nostalgic for the way Atari ran the business.

Edited March 18, 2008 by A Sprite

[supercat]

Or any 2600 sound effect.

 

Donkey Kong running and Pac Man dying?

[A Sprite]

Or any 2600 sound effect.

 

Donkey Kong running and Pac Man dying?

 

Pac-Man has been blamed for the crash. People question whether Coleco deliberately sabotaged it's ports of Donkey Kong.

 

If either brings back nostalgic feelings, it's more often than not due to the memories attached to playing the games, rather than the games themselves.

 

But perhaps a more scientific approach is required.

 

Can anyone find the numbers for Atari 2600 vs. NES after market sales, as well as the sales of rereleases/Game collections?

 

We can also look at the sales of related merchandise...

Edited March 18, 2008 by A Sprite

[Dr. Morbis]

Atari is winning this poll due entirely to the fact that it is posted here on an Atari site, but really, you'd have to blind (or really, really dumb) not to see which of the two has more "nostaligia value" in society today, regardless of how you want to define the term.

[Karyyk]

According to Wiktionary, nostalgia can be defined as:

 

A bittersweet yearning for the things of the past.

 

I think "bittersweet" sums things up nicely for the aging Atari fan...

[guitarmas]

The Nes has value because of the NOAH chip installed. You can get them custom installed now, but you have to get the VCS adapter for it.

[ApolloBoy]

The Nes has value because of the NOAH chip installed. You can get them custom installed now, but you have to get the VCS adapter for it.

 

LOL.

[Atarifever]

Two years ago I couldn't vote on this apparently. Today I feel confident saying the VCS. I spent more time as a kid buying, renting, and playing NES games than VCS stuff. However, my younger, fonder memories are for the VCS. When I think back to the NES, all I can think of is fighting with it to make it work. When I think back to the VCS all I can think about is me and my family laughing when we played it. VCS for the win.

[marcfrick2112]

As said before, it largely depends on your age... Now I love both my NES's and my Atari 2600's... but simply because I have spent so much more time with the 2600's, and when I was young... (I still remember reserving an advance copy of 'Defender' for the horrid sum of $30.00 at KB Toys, downtown Milwaukee)

 

In the house, between my dad and me, we have 3 2600's, and one 7800, but only 2 NES's... 'nuff said....