My favorite games on the NES are Russian attack, the two Zelda games, spy hunter, paperboy, Star Wars games 1-2, all three Mario games several movie games, duck hunt and the one that helped start the Nintendo entertainment system Gyro-mite that included ROB the robot along with several other games. I will always remember the Nintendo entertainment systems even though I started out with Atari and had a few favorite games on that it was Nintendo that saved the at home video game industry and still continues to this day.
The typical American-centric selective game history narrative uncritically repeated ad-nauseum by countless youtubers. The game industry was going strong almost everywhere else with platforms like the Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrads, etc at the time. There was nothing to "save". There was tons of innovation and platforms that were going strong throughout this period in the UK, Canada, South America, and rest of Europe, Australia, etc. There was platformers like Dizzy, complex games like Elite all going strong on most other platforms. It was just the US that had this weird "gaming crash" that no one else had. The truth is, Nintendo couldn't compete in markets where there was actual competition. It was largely a flop in those markets that actually had a strong low-cost microcomputer scene. It only succeeding in America due to coming into a market vacuum with little else on the shelves to compete with (due to some rather questionable strong-arming business practices by Nintendo I might add). The NES was expensive and late! In most markets it simply didn't compete because of the overpriced nature of the software and the outdated hardware by the time it launched in those markets. In markets where consumers actually had competitive choices they largely didn't choose the NES; opting instead for a low cost ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, or Amiga (for those with a bit more cash).
From what I remember back in the day the NES was far more successful in Australia than most people make it out to be, by the time I was introduced to gaming (my intro being the NES itself) Nintendo was a household name here and even became the colloquial term for a video game console in general, full fledged PC's that were capable of gaming were also prohibitively expensive here, thus hindering their availability to most, I've ever only seen a mk 1 Sega Master System in person once and that was at a gaming museum in my home city so they must have sold very poorly here, but with hilariously bad box art (I'm looking at you Alex Kidd in Miracle World) and having the pause button on the system itself instead of the controller (the sensible location for such a button) it's easy to see why
@TransCanadaPhil, hey, you, hoser, S H U T T H E F U C K U P if you are not going to make a better video on the topic! Also, your country literally borders the USA, so it too is also on the NTSB-U standard, so, yes, the typical Canadian experience when it comes to video games is literally not that much different than the American experience on it as well, so kindly p i s s o f f , you t o s s e r ! You do not get to speak for me, OR for the typical Canadian video game player, when it comes to how we experience video games, both back in the past, and now. Also, contrary to what you might attempt to think, yes, there WAS something to save because Atari was the reason why video games not only were relevant, but also why they even existed in the first place! Moreover, even BEFORE Atari, ANOTHER American company, namely, Magnavox, had its Odyssey come out, so, not only were TWO American video game companies that not only literally made the foundation to modern video games, but that are also responsible for making every single video game company, as well as video game system, INCLUDING ALL of the COMPUTER based video game systems/platforms, so, yes, there was quite a bit that could have been lost, not just in the USA, but also worldwide. Now, as for PAL, NTSB-J, and other regions, like ASEAN (which usually either went with the PAL, or NTSB-J standards, depending on the laws of those countries), etc., the video game wars were like a digital version of The Hunger Games, like even more so than what had happened in the USA. "Oh, one video game company goes t i t s up in a PA/NTSB-J/ASEAN Region...oh, no, anyway"... Yeah, the other regions could afford to do that, so as long as the player that was not in the game was too big, anyway. However, as for the USA, well, all of its players were pretty big at the time, Coleco, Mattel, Atari, Sega, Nintendo, NEC, Commodore, Magnavox, maybe one or two other big players that I forgot to mention, so, unlike the rest of the world, losing a big company DID, in fact, cause a MASSIVE collapse, and, had another big company not only had failed to fill the void, but had also not stepped up, then it would have also eventually caused, not just a GLOBAL collapse of ALL of the video game platforms/systems/computer video game systems/platforms, but also the companies that made such things, on both the software, AND the hardware sides of the coin, as well as all of the adjacent industries as well, so do not just blindly and naively think that it is just an American centered, and historical revisionist, take on the matter, because it could have gone global as well. Now, as for the companies that stayed in PAL, and/or NTSB-J regions, with their video/computer game systems/platforms/video/computer games, well, they stayed in those places because a. they stood a far better chance to survive in their home regions, b. they knew that they did not have the budget to compete against the bigger players that were in the game, c. they knew that they simply did not have the physical personnel to challenge the juggernauts that were in the USA, d. they knew that they would be losing in races in which they would be overpowered by the competition, e. they knew that they would be losing in the terms of corporate armaments against the competition, f. the smaller companies simply did not have as many skilled minds at their disposal as the bigger companies, and g. the smaller companies knew that the bigger foreign companies would struggle, aside from one or two big names, in such heavily competitive fields, so the small companies that were popular in PAL and NTSB-J regions more or less stayed in those regions, and/or made the occasional overseas video game, or altered one of their video games, to be sold overseas Now, as for arcade games, well, prior to 1985, you had maybe ten or eleven big players in the arcade scene, and they were Nintendo, Sega, Universal, Williams, Midway, Atari, Gottlieb, Konami, Namco, Taito, and Nichibutsu, with companies like Capcom, SNK, Exidy, and a few smaller others vying for what was left of the audience, and the profits. However, prior to Nintendo, it was pretty much Sega, Namco, Midway, Williams, and Atari, and even they were barely hanging on, so, even though a foreign video game company, namely, Nintendo, made video games relevant, as well as succeeded American video game companies like Atari and Magnavox, had that not happened, then the entire industry would have collapsed, and it nearly did as well, and for that, I would also like to cite what happened to Nintendo because they could not secure the rights to Popeye on time, because, had Nintendo focused on not only that failure, but also the failure of their earlier arcade games like Sheriff and Radarscope, then there WOULD be no video game industry to speak of, and Nintendo would have also gone bankrupt, and that would have deprived Japan of its biggest board game, card game, and toy manufacturer, but also the world of one of its biggest companies in those fields as well, so, yeah, America f u c k i n g d a m n well matters when it comes to the video game industry, as, without America, you literally HAVE no video games industry, end of discussion.
God bless the Atari 2600 and et may it rest in peace
My favorite games on the NES are Russian attack, the two Zelda games, spy hunter, paperboy, Star Wars games 1-2, all three Mario games several movie games, duck hunt and the one that helped start the Nintendo entertainment system Gyro-mite that included ROB the robot along with several other games. I will always remember the Nintendo entertainment systems even though I started out with Atari and had a few favorite games on that it was Nintendo that saved the at home video game industry and still continues to this day.
Never got to experience the NES, looks pretty cool though
Also write a script without AI please
Mario was a charter of Olympic level power
Seems like some of the industry is taking a page off of Atari again
Except this time the shovelware is costing hundreds of millions of dollars to develop.
Ironically, Nintendo is becoming a villain that is destroying video games, along with its rivals, and all of the modern video game companies.
The typical American-centric selective game history narrative uncritically repeated ad-nauseum by countless youtubers. The game industry was going strong almost everywhere else with platforms like the Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrads, etc at the time. There was nothing to "save". There was tons of innovation and platforms that were going strong throughout this period in the UK, Canada, South America, and rest of Europe, Australia, etc. There was platformers like Dizzy, complex games like Elite all going strong on most other platforms. It was just the US that had this weird "gaming crash" that no one else had. The truth is, Nintendo couldn't compete in markets where there was actual competition. It was largely a flop in those markets that actually had a strong low-cost microcomputer scene. It only succeeding in America due to coming into a market vacuum with little else on the shelves to compete with (due to some rather questionable strong-arming business practices by Nintendo I might add). The NES was expensive and late! In most markets it simply didn't compete because of the overpriced nature of the software and the outdated hardware by the time it launched in those markets. In markets where consumers actually had competitive choices they largely didn't choose the NES; opting instead for a low cost ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, or Amiga (for those with a bit more cash).
From what I remember back in the day the NES was far more successful in Australia than most people make it out to be, by the time I was introduced to gaming (my intro being the NES itself) Nintendo was a household name here and even became the colloquial term for a video game console in general, full fledged PC's that were capable of gaming were also prohibitively expensive here, thus hindering their availability to most, I've ever only seen a mk 1 Sega Master System in person once and that was at a gaming museum in my home city so they must have sold very poorly here, but with hilariously bad box art (I'm looking at you Alex Kidd in Miracle World) and having the pause button on the system itself instead of the controller (the sensible location for such a button) it's easy to see why
@TransCanadaPhil, hey, you, hoser, S
H
U
T
T
H
E
F
U
C
K
U
P if you are not going to make a better video on the topic! Also, your country literally borders the USA, so it too is also on the NTSB-U standard, so, yes, the typical Canadian experience when it comes to video games is literally not that much different than the American experience on it as well, so kindly p
i
s
s
o
f
f
, you t
o
s
s
e
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! You do not get to speak for me, OR for the typical Canadian video game player, when it comes to how we experience video games, both back in the past, and now. Also, contrary to what you might attempt to think, yes, there WAS something to save because Atari was the reason why video games not only were relevant, but also why they even existed in the first place! Moreover, even BEFORE Atari, ANOTHER American company, namely, Magnavox, had its Odyssey come out, so, not only were TWO American video game companies that not only literally made the foundation to modern video games, but that are also responsible for making every single video game company, as well as video game system, INCLUDING ALL of the COMPUTER based video game systems/platforms, so, yes, there was quite a bit that could have been lost, not just in the USA, but also worldwide.
Now, as for PAL, NTSB-J, and other regions, like ASEAN (which usually either went with the PAL, or NTSB-J standards, depending on the laws of those countries), etc., the video game wars were like a digital version of The Hunger Games, like even more so than what had happened in the USA. "Oh, one video game company goes t
i
t
s up in a PA/NTSB-J/ASEAN Region...oh, no, anyway"... Yeah, the other regions could afford to do that, so as long as the player that was not in the game was too big, anyway. However, as for the USA, well, all of its players were pretty big at the time, Coleco, Mattel, Atari, Sega, Nintendo, NEC, Commodore, Magnavox, maybe one or two other big players that I forgot to mention, so, unlike the rest of the world, losing a big company DID, in fact, cause a MASSIVE collapse, and, had another big company not only had failed to fill the void, but had also not stepped up, then it would have also eventually caused, not just a GLOBAL collapse of ALL of the video game platforms/systems/computer video game systems/platforms, but also the companies that made such things, on both the software, AND the hardware sides of the coin, as well as all of the adjacent industries as well, so do not just blindly and naively think that it is just an American centered, and historical revisionist, take on the matter, because it could have gone global as well.
Now, as for the companies that stayed in PAL, and/or NTSB-J regions, with their video/computer game systems/platforms/video/computer games, well, they stayed in those places because a. they stood a far better chance to survive in their home regions, b. they knew that they did not have the budget to compete against the bigger players that were in the game, c. they knew that they simply did not have the physical personnel to challenge the juggernauts that were in the USA, d. they knew that they would be losing in races in which they would be overpowered by the competition, e. they knew that they would be losing in the terms of corporate armaments against the competition, f. the smaller companies simply did not have as many skilled minds at their disposal as the bigger companies, and g. the smaller companies knew that the bigger foreign companies would struggle, aside from one or two big names, in such heavily competitive fields, so the small companies that were popular in PAL and NTSB-J regions more or less stayed in those regions, and/or made the occasional overseas video game, or altered one of their video games, to be sold overseas
Now, as for arcade games, well, prior to 1985, you had maybe ten or eleven big players in the arcade scene, and they were Nintendo, Sega, Universal, Williams, Midway, Atari, Gottlieb, Konami, Namco, Taito, and Nichibutsu, with companies like Capcom, SNK, Exidy, and a few smaller others vying for what was left of the audience, and the profits. However, prior to Nintendo, it was pretty much Sega, Namco, Midway, Williams, and Atari, and even they were barely hanging on, so, even though a foreign video game company, namely, Nintendo, made video games relevant, as well as succeeded American video game companies like Atari and Magnavox, had that not happened, then the entire industry would have collapsed, and it nearly did as well, and for that, I would also like to cite what happened to Nintendo because they could not secure the rights to Popeye on time, because, had Nintendo focused on not only that failure, but also the failure of their earlier arcade games like Sheriff and Radarscope, then there WOULD be no video game industry to speak of, and Nintendo would have also gone bankrupt, and that would have deprived Japan of its biggest board game, card game, and toy manufacturer, but also the world of one of its biggest companies in those fields as well, so, yeah, America f
u
c
k
i
n
g
d
a
m
n well matters when it comes to the video game industry, as, without America, you literally HAVE no video games industry, end of discussion.