[It’s a miracle the nes sold like hot cakes]

12 hours ago, johannesmutlu said:

2,nintendo games were also on other systems,

Some, yes, but not nearly enough. Remember that Nintendo actually got in trouble for forcing companies to forego releases on other systems. Mario, Zelda, Contra, Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, etc. didn't see ports on other systems until well after the NES was the market leader by a wide margin. Super Mario Bros on the PC-8801 is not the same thing as the NES, and scrolling is a huge part of that.

 

Quote

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,,,

Pac Land was no Super Mario World. Not even close.

 

Quote

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,

Look, I like my 7800, but it's primary draw is playing 2600 games and a handful of games that were released at the beginning of the 80s. The market had long moved on. It's "good conversions of nintendo [sic] games" are limited to what, Mario Bros? Where is SMB? SMB2? Zelda? Metroid? Kid Icarus? The NES demolishes the 7800 in sports games, shooters, and platformers. And those Pro-Sticks are garbage. The NES controller is a bit too small for me, but it's infinitely better than the Pro-Stick. Plus the NES had the Advantage, which isn't a bad a joystick.

 

Quote

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

Enough did though, and that's what mattered.

 

There's no miracle here. The NES developed a solid system for the time and won out on games.

[Which console do 2600 gamers use to play physical 2600 games?]

On 3/1/2022 at 9:33 PM, littleman jack said:

I use both. Mostly the 7800, unless I want to play a game that doesn't run on or fit in the 7800. The nice thing about the 7800 is that it lends itself to a quick game of two-player cooperative Centipede after a barrage of 2600 games.

Everything I own fits the 7800, so I exclusively use that. I don't even own a 2600 anymore, and see no reason to do so.

 

I agree about Centipede, though. Really fun 2-player action.

[This is what is ruining 2600 collecting]

I remember reading that plenty of ebay sellers will include one or a handful of ridiculously priced games as a way of generating links to their online store... ?

[Best and Worst Things About the 7800]

Pretty much everyone has said it all, but I think it's worth reiterating:

 

Pros:

• Backwards compatibility with the 2600
• Controller port (semi-) compatibility
• Excellent homebrew scene
• Pinnacle of ports for a handful of arcade games (Centipede, Food Fight, Robotron, and that's not mentioning the homebrews)
• Looks great when modded

I'll add a few extra cons, too.

• Bad sound, bad controllers, small library, terrible management
• I don't love the color palette
• Metal plate gets dinged up and is glaringly obvious

[status updates]

3 minutes ago, Albert said:

I'm not sure why, but the ability to post status updates was disabled for you (and it was set so you could re-enable them in your profile).  I've fixed this so you should now see those options.

 

 ..Al

I bet I changed some status switch years ago and forgot about it. Thanks!

[status updates]

7 hours ago, Random Terrain said:

 

Besides going to your profile page, you can also look at the upper right on any forum page, click on the word Create, then click Status and do it right there.

Huh, I don't have either of those options. Not that I wanted to utilize it, but I checked after seeing Atarian7's post and both are missing for me.

[2x Retro Gen Extension Cables *GONE*]

[1995-1998 Genesis games]

On 5/11/2018 at 5:22 AM, Jess Ragan said:

The Majesco port of Frogger was a pleasant surprise. It was coded to be as close to the arcade game as possible, and man is it close!

Yeah, this is my go-to for Frogger these days, and it's my only cart from this era, although I don't know why I never picked up Vectorman. I do like Zoop, but I thought was supposed to be better on the Suoer Nintendo. The rest are meh. (Never played Batman and Robin. Is it any good? I know it's different on the SNES and Genesis.)

 

The Super Nintendo had the better late library, in my opinion, with Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country 2, and Kirby's Dream Course being three excellent games. If you move outside the US library, you also get Terranigma and Seiken Densetsu 3.

[Super Mario World bug]

7 hours ago, atari2600land said:

OK, this is really a bug. If you beat Sunken Ghost Ship and then choose to go backwards (to #6 Wendy's Castle), there will be an eerie silence. The silence will end once you exit Chocolate world.

Is this an emulation thing or real cart? And it affected your exit count?

[Everdrives and the Ukraine crisis]

9 minutes ago, Tempest said:

Oh you sweet summer child

I mean, this is a new departure even for Putin. I know war is endemic to humanity, but invasions of this sort haven't been a thing in decades. But anything I want to say further gets into no-no politics territory.

[Learning to let go of your physical collection]

26 minutes ago, adamchevy said:

I can’t imagine 8k for a mortgage payment. The steepest I’ve ever had is $1300. Now their are many people with car payments the same as my mortgage.

  Oops, sorry, I didn't mean mortgage payment, I meant total left on the house. Once you get down to the 8k range, it's almost over. A few months with your $1300 example.

 

I hate seeing mortgage bills. I pay rent, which means even though I don't own this property, I pay double to triple what someone would pay for this place if they bought it. Grr.

[The Official Sega Saturn Thread!]

5 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

The Saturn has a lot of shooters and most of them are very cheap compared to what you'll see on PC Engine, Japanese Mega Drive, Neo Geo, and most of the other really big shooting platforms, which all have $1000+ shooters while Saturn has exactly no $1000+ shooters right now that I am aware of, so it's relatively easy to get a lot of them since they are easy to find and comparatively cheap, unless you're going for Hyper Duel and Cotton Boomerang, which are rare and expensive (for Saturn shooters). 2000 yen CIB Layer Section? Hell yes. 6000 yen CIB Soukyuugurentai that's actually improved over the arcade version and is stated by the developers to be the best version of the game and the one they want you to play? Even better! 10000 yen Battle Garegga? ...uh, yeah, go get that one on PS4 or Xbox One instead because it's both better and cheaper there lol.

 

Anyway, the Saturn has a lot of RPGs and visual novels, though, and those are generally very cheap here. Same with Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop and its sequel, and lots of other games. I really should go play Devil Summoner and Soul Hackers now that Soul Hackers 2 got announced.

I'm not a fan of visual novels and RPGs on the Saturn are either ridiculously expensive or imports, and sadly I can't read Japanese (yet). Virtua Fighter and Cop fall into the "fighters and shooters" tag, so I have those covered. Love me some Virtua Cop 1/2 and even House of the Dead. These three games (and Duck Hunt) are the chief I exclusively play on a CRT still.

[The Official Sega Saturn Thread!]

On 2/18/2022 at 8:53 AM, Steven Pendleton said:

I need more not-shooting games. Maybe it's time to go find a cheap Devil Summoner or a cheap Soul Hackers or a cheap Panzer Dragoon RPG or something like that. I realized that 11 of my 19 Saturn games are (very good) shooting games and not a whole lot else. Of course, I'll probably forget and go to Akiba and come back with Batsugun or Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus or Game Tengoku or Layer Section II or something like that instead. Still have not found a bug-fix copy of either Out Run or Space Harrier yet.

I'm in this boat, too. Most of my Saturn games are shooters. One racer (Sega Rally), one run-n-gun (Metal Slug), and a few fighters, though my favorite post-16 bit fighters at that (Vampire Savior and the two X-Men games). There are games I would get if they were cheaper or were officially translated into English, but alas, the system is crazy to buy for. I've been wanting a US version of Dragon Force for so long, but I'm just ready to call it quits, sell my chipped Saturn, and buy a JP one to play my shooters and fighters.

[Do you wear video game themed or inspired clothes?]

I voted #3 but it's really more #2. I have two VG-themed t-shirts (one Donkey Kong and one Mario and company), but I don't really wear them for anything more than general house tees. And they're super old now. I don't think I would mind owning some cheap tees to wear around the house, but I wouldn't be seen wearing these out in public. I generally don't like the t-shirt look, even in the summer. I'd take a polo over one any (warm) day. Maybe underneath a button-down? But lounge wear is a different story.

[Restored and repaired a Model 1 Genesis]

4 hours ago, RetroSonicHero said:

If we're talking prices, it doesn't get much better than that.

 

Cleaning it might not be a bad idea, however..

Seconded on both counts. Congrats on the new Genny. What role does this new console play in your collection?

[The Atari Report will cease operations March 1st.]

4 minutes ago, BIGHMW said:

Well @Keatah, basically The Atari Report is also yet another audition to help land me a job in the mainstream entertainment industry. In other words, it was to showcase my presenting skills as well as those of producing, editing, and also as a voiceover (as seen at the very beginning of every episode) and as an announcer or narrator (as to the in-game narration on each episode) so in a way every miniseries I've ever done on all 3 of my channels has been to get the attention of the mainstream media industry, in any facet of it possible, whether it be as a DJ on the radio (with "BIGHMW LIVE!"), television, or something in this business. The music is the main thing but since we are in the middle of the worst pandemic in U.S. history I have had to try to reinvent myself and try to twist myself into pretzels in order to try and stay relevant in this business, even though I am nearing 56 years of age in which I will become on May 19th.

 

It's not like I HAVEN'T tried. I've bent over backwards to try and get noticed NOT for the past 18 months, but rather for THE PAST 27 YEARS!!! I have done everything but resort to producing homemade pornography on Pornhub or XHamster to try and get noticed in this business, but nothing has worked. Something, is up. I mean when no-talent auto-tuned plastic insincere frauds over the years like Justin Bieber, Nick Jonas, One Direction or BTS get noticed and are put above you and the industry simply throws both you and your legacy under the bus, despite the fact that you have been going at it for longer than these guys were even born, then something's wrong.

Some goals really are unreachable. It might just not be for you. Execs don't care about anyone unless they can appeal to a wider demographic. If you're not appealing to that demographic, pretty much forget it. Maybe some niche roles. Look at Seth Rogen or Keith Apicary, but there's a sense of self-deprecation (just enough, not too much) that comes with that territory. But at the very least, a self-awareness that you and BTS occupy entirely different spheres.

[The Atari Report will cease operations March 1st.]

5 minutes ago, Leonard Smith said:

Well, sorry things didn't work out.

But there's plenty of new and interesting things to do outside of Youtube.  It's never been a better time to look at new careers, for example.

 

On the topic of 'Youtube Celebrities' (LOL), the one thing that really grinds my gears is the how they utilize forums and threads to push their channel and/or content.  
I've seen a few regurgitate the same garbage in MULTIPLE forums like "Heeyyy guys!  Let's pay tribute to this game store in blah blah town..."  MetalJesus and awbacon are notorious for this.

 

The other method they employ is posting a clickbait topic (or respond to a thread) with a link of their latest video.  
So much for contributing to the conversation.  

 

My advice is to put these deviants on ignore, report their videos as spam, and/or dislike their videos.  Don't reward or acknowledge them.  And more importantly, do not defend them or their so-called 'passion' because you know they're only in it for the monetization. 

I don't love any -casts, Youtube, pod, or otherwise. But I don't mind it existing so long as the promoter also legitimately and earnestly engages with the community. The promotion should be a supplement to the actual discussion, otherwise it's, as you note, just spam.

[Learning to let go of your physical collection]

2 hours ago, WIZZARD77 said:

I only had about 8k left to pay off. I put everything I sold into separate account until It was all gone. Then I just dumped it all into the principal. When I was done, I only had about 2 or 3 payments left. My hobby made me independent.

I mean, 8k is just a push over the edge for what I guess are many people's mortgages.

[Quality game grading at a fraction of retail cost!]

Will you grade my students' papers? If so, how much?

[Would David Crane's, A Boy And His Blob and its sequel, have been 7800 games?]

31 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

I remember being very interested in this game, but not actually liking it.  It was weird, like I'd rent it again, knowing that I didn't have fun "last time," but still wanted to give it another shot.

 

But yeah, I didn't like it much on NES.   However, I bought the Wii version/remake and loved it.   

I would say that it has a charm that draws me to it (and the GB and Wii versions even). I don't love it, but it has endeared itself to me enough that I couldn't part with it easily.

[What's more vintage and more interesting than a C-64?]

On 1/31/2022 at 7:51 PM, CatPix said:

It is dumb because clearly, almost everybody I talked that about or I joked with "Millenials" though it meant "people born around the year 2000". In the same way that "baby-boomers" is the generation that was born from the baby-boom, not the generation that was reaching adulthood when the baby-boom happened.

 

And starting it in 1982? That's crazy. Technology moved so fast. It mean that a millenial born in 1982 would be flabbergasted at the idea of "same generation" kids born in 1998 having smartphones and social networks accounts at 10 when themselves wouldn't had even dreamt of that.

Tho I think "Millenials" is more used by journalists than sociologists. It's like boomers. Ironically, as "boomers" is used by kids and teenagers to talk about their parents... it mean that "boomers" are also "millenials"

Agreed. It's not altogether a sociology thing, but a socio-cultural/journalist thing. There is a vast gulf of difference between those of us born in the 80s and those in the 90s. As technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace, categorizing groups according to some arbitrary 25 year period is less and less tenable. Attitudes shift, and no group is ever monolithic and will never be again. Fragmentation is too great.

 

And as Old CS1 mentioned, the title is totally clickbait. The plane is cool, but that uploader is a dick for doing that.

[How many of you still stuck with the 2600 during the NES years?]

On 2/1/2022 at 8:38 PM, Shaggy the Atarian said:

I think I was only 3 or 4, so it was even worse.  I do realize the game is incredibly boring now, but back then I think it was just the imagination that we had about what was "really" going on in the game. I remember doing that with a few games like Star Raiders and Atlantis, pretending I was really in the game and such (I've not seen my own kids really do that with newer games). The same thing applied to cover art, I remember looking at that and coming up with what else was going on in the game and letting my imagination run wild. Can't remember when I stopped doing that, probably around when I was 10 or 11.

 

As for the NES hate - as a kid, I had no idea about any of Nintendo's practices going on then, so it didn't affect me. For me, I just loved video games in any form that I could find them (with some extra love given towards underdogs)

This is 100% true to my experience, too. After so many hours of indoors video game playing, we'd all go outside and "imaginate" the details. Or draw them out. Not all of us had active imaginations, but I think having one made the game experience richer.

 

To answer the question: yep, we had a 2600 up until my sister (the eldest) bought a Super Nintendo, maybe 1991? I then got a Genesis a little while after. From there the consoles blossomed, but the only interaction I had with a Nintendo was at neighbors' and friends' houses. I did love those games, though, so it wasn't by choice we didn't have a Nintendo.

[Learning to let go of your physical collection]

1 hour ago, jgkspsx said:

It’s funny, this translates well to other fields of endeavor too. Stamp and coin and baseball card collectors can just look at photos of those things. Classic car enthusiasts can just play audio of a 1933 Hudson while they drive their Taurus. Guitar players can just buy one good guitar and a solid state amp with a digital effects board and sell their vintage Gibsons and Fenders and Danelectros and their analog pedals and tube amps. Book collectors can get a Kindle. And so on. That’s a whole lot of wasted effort and money saved!

I don't think any of these are really the same as video games. The big difference is that video games are digital to begin with, so a proper ROM dump on a flash cart is 100% indistinguishable from a legit cart. It's the same code.

 

You're probably just taking a jab here, but you really can't be serious that playing an audio of an older car while driving is anything close to the same experience!

[Learning to let go of your physical collection]

6 hours ago, Keatah said:

And when I watch those youtubers with mega-collections spanning multiple rooms I'm not impressed anymore. I gotta wonder how much time they spend maintaining it all. Including researching and buying new titles. Avoiding disc-rot and the myriad forms of degradation. What kind of reward does 20 minutes of fame bring? How do they even know they got fame to begin with?

I think my big disillusionment occurred in conjunction with that one guy who made headlines (in retro circles) for buying a complete US PS2 set. Dude just spent tens of thousands of dollars and bought it all. People ate that up, but I thought it was stupid. What's the point? With just buying it all in one go, you no longer have a carefully curated selection. You didn't have to go hunting. There's no story about your collection. No, you're just showing off your money. Anyone with money could do the same, so what's there to be impressed about? I've never wanted to own a complete set of any game library, but after seeing that, I no longer find any "wall collection" of video games impressive. Just a huge waste of money that could have been spent far better than stroking one's ego.

[Learning to let go of your physical collection]

On 1/28/2022 at 12:31 AM, NeonSpaceBeagle said:

Like shitty third party controllers who cables have gummed into sticky messes, broken systems, sports games for all kinds of systems (always street finds), just a lot of random junk.  

At some point, you just have to trash it and learn to avoid junk. And that's true not just for games, but for everything. I know she's not as popular anymore, but I Kondo was on the right track. (Of course, Laozi said it first, but Kondo made it popular, which is a great thing.) Why keep something because you might do something with it later? If it doesn't bring you joy, junk it. Sell it, off-load it, if it's not moving at all, recycle what you can and toss the rest. But most importantly, think before you buy. We wouldn't be in this position in the first place if we had spent more time thinking about what we actually wanted and not worrying about getting things before prices hiked.

 

Years ago I had way too much. Then I went through a huge purge and sold consoles and games and whatever else I could. I got rid of the Xbox, Xbox 360, PS3, Super Cassette Vision, Neo Geo CD, PSP, Nintendo DS, Lynx, and anything pre-NES except 2600 and ColecoVision. I went from having 50 PS2 games to 15, and a few more might still go. I still have a box of residuals, and the pile grows as I learn what I want to focus on. Now I keep only what I (or my family) really want to own, what I really want to play. Hard lines in the sand are actually a good thing - don't get X or Y consoles unless you know you'll spend some good time with it. After all, we only have so much time to play them! Haven't played a console in years? Sell it. If any of it is nostalgic, throw it in a box and see how much you really miss it in a few years. Maybe keep just a few choice games.

 

Remember, folks, you can't take it with you when you go, and 99% of the time, no one else wants "your collection" (aka, "your junk"). It'll likely be trashed or sold for peanuts unless you act now. It's just stuff, after all.