I think now I understand why the NES beat the 7800

[SoulBlazer]

Interesting discussion so far.

 

I think a strong part of it also ties into what we grew up playing with. I love all games (see my sig) but the NES will always have a special place in my heart (along with the SNES and C64 to a lesser degree) cause I grew up with those systems and was a kid/teenager when playing them. Firing up Blades of Steel or Zelda II on a emulator reminds me of playing it when the game was new and brings back good memories. I totally understand the older people here who grew up on the 2600/5200 doing the same thing. But as someone said, those wars are long over. Atari as we knew it then is gone, Nintendo and Sega are best buds, Sony and Microsoft have split up the market with Nintendo, and things keep changing. What happened is historical fact. As a trained historian, I know to look beyond the personal feelings and opinions of something and analyze WHY and HOW something came to be, as some posters here have done a good job off.

 

One point about the NES I want to correct, though. Nintendo restricted their third party publishers to just FIVE games a year, NOT two. Just look at the release lists of Capcom and Konami for proof of that. The only 'labels' that I'm aware off were Ultra (which was controled by Konami) and LJN (controled by Acclaim).

 

I also found it interesting when I noticed recently that Interplay -- a major PC gaming company of the late 80's and most of the 90's -- developed several games for the NES, which they licenced to other companies to then sell under their own name (such as Total Recall and Swords and Serpents). Guess Atari didn't get ALL the PC companies, huh?

[Lynxpro]

I'm not sure, but I recall an issue of Atarian that I found in a magazine rack back then (I was pretty amazed to find it, actually!)

 

You mean this?

 

http://www.atariage.com/magazines/atarian.html

 

 

I haven't downloaded that link but I can tell you I'm probably one of the few people on this board that had tips published in The Atarian back then...

[Lynxpro]

Maybe I missed something, but why were Atari arcade games such as "Marble Madness", "Paperboy" and "Gauntlet" on the NES, but not the Atari 7800? Atari couldn't port their own games to their own console?

 

No because as already said about a million times here Atari Games (Tengen) and Atari Corp. (Tramiels) were seperate companies so they had to pay to license such games like they would with anyone else.

 

Okay, so then they couldn't afford or they didn't think it was worthwhile to pay to license those games. Makes sense. Thanks.

 

It takes money to make money. How much per cartridge would it have been for Atari to release Paperboy, Gauntlet, etc. on the 7800? Nintendo paid the fees and thus was able to sell more product (consoles and cartridges). While Atari seemed to slink off to the corner, licking its wounds. I know I'm playing armchair CEO here, but if I had been running Atari, I'd have done things way differently -- better gamepads, more titles, etc..

 

 

That's not how it worked. Atari Games/Tengen signed up to be an NES licensee because it was the leading console and it was their parent company's [Namco's] wishes. Once you licensed those games for play on the NES, you were locked into the exclusive agreement. Thus Atari Corp. could not license those titles after-the-fact. The licensing agreements didn't loosen up on Nintendo's part until Atari Games and Atari Corp both sued them on antitrust grounds, the Feds were showing signs of interest, and Nintendo was about to loose licensees over to the Sega Genesis if they didn't liberalize their terms...

[kool kitty89]

That's not how it worked. Atari Games/Tengen signed up to be an NES licensee because it was the leading console and it was their parent company's [Namco's] wishes. Once you licensed those games for play on the NES, you were locked into the exclusive agreement. Thus Atari Corp. could not license those titles after-the-fact. The licensing agreements didn't loosen up on Nintendo's part until Atari Games and Atari Corp both sued them on antitrust grounds, the Feds were showing signs of interest, and Nintendo was about to loose licensees over to the Sega Genesis if they didn't liberalize their terms...

Sort of (it wasn't that simple), but as I mentioned in my response to that same post earlier, it was an issue with 3rd party support rather than Atari paying for games. (Nintendo was PAID by the publishers for having the games on the system)

The money was important, but mainly in terms of pushing massive marketing/ad campaigns to build the system up to such popularity. (as well as virtually risking bankruptsy back in '83 to secure a sufficiently low cost for the Famicom with a 3 million unit minimum contract with Ricoh to boost economies of scale -ie it would have ruined Nintendo had it not taken off and been properly managed given how small the company was at the time -by 1986, they weren't that same small company and got much bigger still with their US market)

 

 

As for the licenses: it only applied to publishing iirc, not license of a specific game, thus the same title could be licensed/published under a different label, just not by the publisher licensed for the game by Nintendo. (there were lots of other restrictions for licensees like the 2 games per year per publisher without Nintendo's express permission, etc)

For example, Sega licensed Double Dragon for the SMS and released it about the same time (or slightly earlier) than the NES conversion iirc. (the Activision published Atari games came a year later iirc)

That's why I said earlier that Atari would have been good to offer a loophole license agreement whereby 3rd parties could publish their games through Atari's label but otherwise be independent. (no commissions by Atari, not necessarily having Atari doing any manufacturing, perhaps not even royalties to Atari -at least once Atari was in such a bad position and having more games even without royalties would have been attractive)

And none of that should have stopped Atari from tapping the many European 3rd parties who had nothing to do with Nintendo platforms at the time. (lots of nice Euro computer games that could have been pushed on the 7800)

 

However, Nintendo certainly could have gone the extra mile and shelled out the money for exclusive licenses for some games (they definitely had that for Tetris, not sure what others though), but that's totally separate from normal 3rd party publishing license contracts.

 

 

Also, Tengen/Atari Games began development for the Famicom even before Warner even sold them for planned Japanese releases well before the NES was even test marketed iirc.

What's also interesting is that after Tengen got fed up and went unlicensed, they STILL were getting a number of Namco licenses and publishing them in the Rabbit chipped carts. (like Rolling Thunder)

That's really interesting since Namco was supposedly one of the tightest associated Nintendo licensed publishers. (then again, I seem to recall them becoming more and more disgruntled over Nintendo's policies)

Edited March 12, 2011 by kool kitty89

[toptenmaterial]

I am curious as to why 3rd party publishers put up with Nintendo's bullshit- why not write for Sega or Atari instead? Did Nintendo's stranglehold prevent distribution of rival

consoles?

[+wood_jl]

I've always had a bias against the PSX and PS2 (for a variety of reasons -more so after I learned more about Sony), but I can't deny that there's a lot of great games (exclusives at that) that I like on those systems.

 

Get a mod-chipped PS1/PS2 system, then, and get back at "the man" with your broadband connection and disc burner, playing those great games all the while without enrichening "the man." <I do not condone this activity; just presenting it as an option to those who may have a beef with Sony.>

[+wood_jl]

I know I was just a kid/young adult at the time, but back then I really was aware of how much everyone seemed to jump on the Nintendo bandwagon and forget all things Atari. At that time, I had been heavily involved in the 400/800's for years and it seemed that the Nintendo juggernaut was even reaching out and affecting how much support anything (not just the consoles) Atari received.

 

Pretty much my situation, exactly. Despite my post (just wanted to be fair; the NES is a fun system) I wouldn't trade one Atari 400/800/XL/XE item for TEN Nintendo items of equal or greater value. I'm a 400/800 man, first and foremost. But Punch Out turned out to be fun, after I finally quit snarling at the machine. Still not trading for ten Nintendo items....

[SpaceDice2010]

I am curious as to why 3rd party publishers put up with Nintendo's bullshit- why not write for Sega or Atari instead? Did Nintendo's stranglehold prevent distribution of rival

consoles?

 

Nintendo was where the money was for publishers.

[8th lutz]

I am curious as to why 3rd party publishers put up with Nintendo's bullshit- why not write for Sega or Atari instead? Did Nintendo's stranglehold prevent distribution of rival

consoles?

 

Nintendo was where the money was for publishers.

It goes even a little bit deeper than that despite being one of the reasons.

 

Big Name Japanese third parties were signing with Nintendo back around 1984 or early 1985. The Atari 7800 or the Sms was not one the market yet. The big name companies I am referring to was Capcom,Enix,Hudson, Irem, Konami, Namco, Sunsoft, and Taito.

Edited March 14, 2011 by 8th lutz

[kool kitty89]

I've always had a bias against the PSX and PS2 (for a variety of reasons -more so after I learned more about Sony), but I can't deny that there's a lot of great games (exclusives at that) that I like on those systems.

 

Get a mod-chipped PS1/PS2 system, then, and get back at "the man" with your broadband connection and disc burner, playing those great games all the while without enrichening "the man." <I do not condone this activity; just presenting it as an option to those who may have a beef with Sony.>

Heh, or just emulate in the case of the plain PS1 especially. (tons of flexibility, etc)

I did finally get a real PS1 (SCPH-100x, luckily no reliability issues) thanks to Apolloboy. I haven't chipped it yet either and haven't started downloading any games, but I've got a good idea of which ones I'd want. (oddly, the PSX's video seems to have problems on late 80s Zenith TVs, even more strangely, it's only in 240p mode -odd vertical jiggling problem- and it's fine in 480i -of course very few games used that res on the PSX)

OTOH, I've already got so many other platforms/games to divide my interest. (I've got a list of classic DOS/windows PC games to go through as well -though largely waiting to build a good 98SE machine for that purpose -except any really old/timing sensitive DOS games which I'll do in DOSBox instead, or maybe VDMSound)

 

I'll stop there as I'll keep rambling otherwise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am curious as to why 3rd party publishers put up with Nintendo's bullshit- why not write for Sega or Atari instead? Did Nintendo's stranglehold prevent distribution of rival

consoles?

Nintendo had the best product (at a competitive price) and the best management/marketing for such in Japan and had also taken some serious risks to establish that (like a 3 million unit contract with Ricoh to produce Famicom chips) especially for such a small company (as they were in 1983), things that could have ruined Nintendo if the FC had failed. (ie betting the farm, so to speak)

Thus they already had dominance in Japan by 1985 with strong developer support and a strong/influential position on the region. (sort of like Atari Inc in 1980)

 

So when they launched in the US, they had all that success and support driving them with a platform that was already almost 3 years old (NES launched in September of 1986) and on top of that, they had good enough marketing/management and budget in the US market to dig in rather quickly. (Sega had a bigger budget at launch and strong enough 1st party support to make for a competitive lineup, plus they had a larger marketing budget too, but they had weak management/distribution in the US -in Europe, Nintendo botched their management -especially in the UK with a very late release- and Sega got it pretty decent with some powerful distributors in the region -plus the highly competitive low-end home computer market inducing better competition in general)

 

Atari had reasonable management under Tramiel and Katz, but a very small marketing budget compared to Nintendo or Sega (almost an order of magnitude smaller iirc -in 1986, Nintendo was pushing 6 million and Sega 9 million iirc, and that obviously would have gotten bigger with Nintendo expanding -and then 3rd parties pushing their own software). Katz manged things well enough that, in spite of the cripling marketing and software development budget, and with some help of the Atari brand name, Atari Corp managed to remain the 2nd highest market share through the late 80s. (albeit a distant second to Nintendo, but more than double the market share of Sega/Tonka with better software and a much larger marketing budget -it might have shifted in favor of Sega in 1989, but I'm not sure, definitely by 1990 with the Genesis sales -the 1st quarter of the 1990 fiscal year starting in october 1989)

 

 

Once the NES dug-in with the 1986 holiday season, things just got worse for the competitions as Nintendo then had the full attention of US software developers as well and ever growing influence over them. (they'd want to publish for the NES and thus Nintendo could impose restrictions as such)

 

On top of that, the NES was relatively well suited to game development of the time and highly programmable. (relatively programmer friendly for the types of games pushed at the time and the other platforms -arcade and computer- that were popular at the time) The Master System was reasonably similar in that respect (some trade-offs and nominal advantages in graphics -definitely weaker sound with that old SN76489 and the YM2413 module never released in the west), but the 7800 was a very different beast that did not mesh well with the mass market at the time. (if it had launched in '84, it would have been OK since you'd have lots of developers going straight off the likes of the VCS and thus not "spoiled" by the "standard" tilemap+XYsprite based systems -the C64, CV and other TI9918 platforms were the only ones pushing both of those features; so if the 7800 has started building a strong development base in '84, it very well may have been strong enough by '86 to deflect the hardware advantages of the competition -let alone the impact on the consumer end with a 2 year lead and the added revenue it would have meant for Atari)

That's sort of the issue that favors going back to the 5200 or releasing a directly compatible XL console in 1984/85 (like the XEGS, but early enough to matter), a platform with existing development base and fairly well understood architecture, plus one less distinct platform for Atari to support. (and in some ways, easier to program for than the 7800)

Heh, and if they went the computer route, Nintendo would have been screwed with their licensing contracts since those didn't bar publishing for "computers".

 

Developers DID eventually get fed up with that BS and due to a combination of that, mounting litigation (and threats of more), and mounting competition, Nintendo was lightening those restrictions by the early 90s. (Sega was still far more attractive to publish for though, with far fewer restrictions and greater flexibility: more favorable licensing contracts, more flexibility over the contracts, full freedom of 3rd parties to manufacture and distribute their own games or opt to have Sega manage production -EA, Acclaim, Accolade, and several Japanese developers -Namco, Sunsoft, and a couple others iirc- produced their own carts -the Japanese ones used carts almost identical to Sega's)

 

 

 

 

I am curious as to why 3rd party publishers put up with Nintendo's bullshit- why not write for Sega or Atari instead? Did Nintendo's stranglehold prevent distribution of rival

consoles?

 

Nintendo was where the money was for publishers.

It goes even a little bit deeper than that despite being one of the reasons.

 

Big Name Japanese third parties were signing with Nintendo back around 1984 or early 1985. The Atari 7800 or the Sms was not one the market yet. The big name companies I am referring to was Capcom,Enix,Hudson, Irem, Konami, Namco, Sunsoft, and Taito.

Yep, and somehow Nintendo managed to even establish similar licensing agreements in Japan in spite of there being no more security/lockout on the hardware than the VCS, Intellivision, Colecovision, A8, VIC, C64, etc. (makes you wonder if Atari Inc could have pushed that with the VCS instead of trying to block 3rd parties and then failing with Activision's suit ending up launching open 3rd party publishing -at very least they could have used an Atari licensed seal or such on the games and had that marketing edge to attract 3rd party developers to go licensed)

That and with the NES's lockout disabled with a simple voltage spike circuit, there wasn't much (legally) barring 3rd parties in the west from going unlicensed. (of course, they'd lose the official Nintendo seal and could become victims of Nintendo's unofficial and more illegal tactics -like threatening to cut-off retailers who stocked unlicensed games)

Edited March 14, 2011 by kool kitty89

[toptenmaterial]

thanks kool kitty and others. i am always amazed by the success and dominance of Nintendo, particually in the early years.

[Lynxpro]

As for the licenses: it only applied to publishing iirc, not license of a specific game, thus the same title could be licensed/published under a different label, just not by the publisher licensed for the game by Nintendo. (there were lots of other restrictions for licensees like the 2 games per year per publisher without Nintendo's express permission, etc)

For example, Sega licensed Double Dragon for the SMS and released it about the same time (or slightly earlier) than the NES conversion iirc. (the Activision published Atari games came a year later iirc)

That's why I said earlier that Atari would have been good to offer a loophole license agreement whereby 3rd parties could publish their games through Atari's label but otherwise be independent. (no commissions by Atari, not necessarily having Atari doing any manufacturing, perhaps not even royalties to Atari -at least once Atari was in such a bad position and having more games even without royalties would have been attractive)

 

 

I disagree. Atari Corp. sued Nintendo on antitrust grounds because the publishers could not only not publish on other consoles if they were already licensees to the NES but they also couldn't license those games to other platforms for others to publish. That didn't loosen up until 1988/89 because of the Atari Corp./Atari Games lawsuits and the threats of Federal intervention and lawsuits from other companies. Almost all the titles that appeared on the NES were exclusive to the NES until Nintendo got scared.

 

If what you say is true then NEC would've been able to release all of the titles that were released on the PC Engine in Japan to the TurboGrafx-16 here in the US. Nintendo's licensing prevented even NES from sub-licensing those titles directly to NEC to self-publish.

 

 

 

I am curious as to why 3rd party publishers put up with Nintendo's bullshit- why not write for Sega or Atari instead? Did Nintendo's stranglehold prevent distribution of rival

consoles?

 

 

Nintendo was a proven hit in Japan, it had money, it had experience, and Atari [Corp.] was a cluster-**** in 1985/86 when the NES launched in the States. After 86, Nintendo had a large installed user base. Nintendo's restrictive policies were also thought to prevent another industry meltdown like 1983-84 from the glut of crummy games that destroyed Atari and its competitors.

[akator]

I disagree. Atari Corp. sued Nintendo on antitrust grounds because the publishers could not only not publish on other consoles if they were already licensees to the NES but they also couldn't license those games to other platforms for others to publish. That didn't loosen up until 1988/89 because of the Atari Corp./Atari Games lawsuits and the threats of Federal intervention and lawsuits from other companies. Almost all the titles that appeared on the NES were exclusive to the NES until Nintendo got scared.

 

Kent's book also suggests that the Genesis release started to break Nintendo's grip. The fact that Sega didn't have Nintendo's restrictions and the Genesis was more powerful was a big draw, so developers released Genesis games even though they still had exclusivity contracts with Nintendo. So many did it, including big publishers, that there was no way Nintendo could enforce their contracts either privately or legally.

[toptenmaterial]

The NES prevailed because it brought something new to the table, also Nintendo was flush with cash and executed it's American introduction brilliantly. Having identifiable charectors (Mario, Link, DK) was the stroke of genious that won the hearts and minds of children in the US. I must confess they got me, too!

[toptenmaterial]

Has anyone read Game Over, by any chance? What's the verdict on that one?

[kool kitty89]

I am curious as to why 3rd party publishers put up with Nintendo's bullshit- why not write for Sega or Atari instead? Did Nintendo's stranglehold prevent distribution of rival

consoles?

 

Nintendo was where the money was for publishers.

It goes even a little bit deeper than that despite being one of the reasons.

 

Big Name Japanese third parties were signing with Nintendo back around 1984 or early 1985. The Atari 7800 or the Sms was not one the market yet. The big name companies I am referring to was Capcom,Enix,Hudson, Irem, Konami, Namco, Sunsoft, and Taito.

To add what I mentioned before:

 

The SMS may not have been on the market yet, but there WAS competition in Japan, just not very effective competition.

The SG-1000 was the most capable, but it was still just (more or less) a colecovision (granted, thus roughly as capable as the MSX) and Sega didn't manage a compeitive/lower price point of competitive marketing iirc. (don't know a lot about the history of that market though)

 

Nintendo also had been one of the biggest seller of Pong clones and other dedicated consoles earlier on with their TV Game systems. (plus the Game and Watch line of handhelds)

 

Atari failed to market the 2600 in Japan early enough or license it to an effective 3rd party Japanese distributor. (it seems the VCS's price was abnormally high in Japan as well) The same was true for localizations of the Intellivision and such. (and some JP exclusive systems)

 

Thus, there was no strong console market in Japan prior to the NES, it was niche for the cart based machines along with a moderate market for dedicated game systems (Pong and such), somewhat like the US in 1977. (though Nintendo pushed for a tighter market model than Warner/Atari -high volumes and selling at cost with licensed 3rd party publishers- and took off more rapidly than the VCS -they accomplished more or less what Atari did from '77-80 in '83-85 -the smaller/denser JP marker also greatly facilitated that spread -the US market is massive and unwieldy by comparison, much harder and riskier: hence why almost all Japanese products were/are tested first in Japan before even considering an international release -Europe is not quite as good, but also more favorable than the US, putting US companies at a disadvantage for such risks or forcing them to start with a smaller region of the US alone)

[kool kitty89]

The NES prevailed because it brought something new to the table, also Nintendo was flush with cash and executed it's American introduction brilliantly. Having identifiable charectors (Mario, Link, DK) was the stroke of genious that won the hearts and minds of children in the US. I must confess they got me, too!

Previous consoles had had identifiable/original characters too, but never pushed as proper mascots as a marketing gimmick. (that came after the fact for Nintendo too)

Hell, some games even had full comic books that went with them. (like with Yar's revenge, both an original character and a cool backstory and comic to go with it)

 

I'm all one for giving credit where credit is due (like Nintendo's marketing that catered to a broader spectrum than ever before and accelerated the expansion of the market), but Nintendo obviously gets far more credit than they deserve. (things like reviving the US market when it was clearly on the rebound before the NES test marketed, etc)

They also deserve credit for managing a company well when it was growing so rapidly. (Sega and Atari both had serious problems during or just after periods of rapid expansion)

 

One of the biggest advantages Nintendo had in marketing in the US was that they'd been trying to get into the market for almost 3 full years by the time of the NES's 1986 launch, so they probably knew their way around the consumer market a lot better than the likes of Sega. (albeit Sega obviously could have invested in partnering with a prominent US distributor/retailer that knew the market well -Tonka wasn't perfect, but if Sega had had them at launch, the SMS almost certainly would have done much better from the start -Sega got that right in Europe at least, though it wasn't until late 1989 that Mike Katz took the reigns and SoA got the management to drive them to success -one big thing was investing in building up SoA's staff in general)

 

Sega's failings with the SMS pale in comparison to NEC with the TG-16 . . . NEC, a megacorp of a similar variety to Sony with a strong following in Japan, a highly cost/performance efficient hardware platform on top of vertical integration, and massive funding/lines of credit at their disposal.

They could have slashed the price of the PCE's hardware, invested massively in advertising, put down tons of cash on software development and expansion in the west, etc, etc (ie everything that Sony did half a decade later), but they did none of that.

The TG-16 launched with a mediocre-pack in, price no better than the Genesis (newer, much less consolidated, and no vertical integration), bulkier size but still only 1 controller port, and (most significantly) totally mismatched and underwhelming marketing. (and no European release at all)

 

 

It's interesting to note that in many cases, it's more of a case of who doesn't screw up than who does things well. (then you have perfect storm situations like the original PSX: Sony managed things almost perfectly, had almost perfect hardware for the market at the time, had excellent tools for the hardware, had excellent marketing, had tons of funding, and all the major competition seriously screwing up -albeit in some cases, Sony's shock to the market exacerbated the problems of competitors like Sega, 3DO, and NEC -and Atari, but they had so many problems already it's not remotely funny- Nintendo OTOH just seemed to screw themselves over by being stubborn with their decision to scrap optical media -cancel the SNES CD that they'd been string media/users along with for 4 years and then announce the '64 would be cart based as well- Nintendo very well may have swept the market with a CD/proprietary optical media based N64, or at least be neck and neck with Sony worldwide)

 

 

 

 

Has anyone read Game Over, by any chance? What's the verdict on that one?

It's a relatively accurate account of Nintendo's history iirc, but not much more. (ie it has a narrow scope)

 

Kent's book (Ultimate History of Video Games) has a nice broad scope, but is unfortunately heavily plagued with inaccuracies due to a lack of prudent fact checking and cross-referencing. (it's really only good for direct quotes -which are very well cited- and even then, you need to check the sources to get an idea of the accuracy -one obvious example is all the myths propagated/perpetuated by Nolan Bushnell)

 

Kent recognizes that flaw, but he neither has the interest nor the ability to revise the book. (he sold the rights)

 

 

Kent's book also suggests that the Genesis release started to break Nintendo's grip. The fact that Sega didn't have Nintendo's restrictions and the Genesis was more powerful was a big draw, so developers released Genesis games even though they still had exclusivity contracts with Nintendo. So many did it, including big publishers, that there was no way Nintendo could enforce their contracts either privately or legally.

It had a lot more to do with SoA's (Sega of America) management at the time than the technical capabilities of the Genesis. The master system was generally ahead of the NES (had they brought the FM add-on over, it would have been almost completely superior to the NES -even with mappers), but Sega mismanaged it pretty badly in the US. (Tonka did a decent job, but not exceptional -especially considering they took charge in '88, when Nintendo was almost at its peak and Sega had sustained nearly 2 years of mismanagement and sub-par marketing with the SMS in the US -one of the most obvious changes for the better was Tonka's decent to good quality packaging art compared to the horrible '86/87 examples)

 

If the Master System had been managed properly, it would have been folly for Sega to launch the MD so soon and SoJ should have seriously considered holding back the MD until '89 at least (later in the west) and sacrifice the Japanese market somewhat to cater to the SMS's success in the west. (they could simply have held back the MD's release in the west, but keeping it in develop a year longer could have paid off big time in the western markets with a cleaner piece of hardware with more features at similar or lower cost)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for the licenses: it only applied to publishing iirc, not license of a specific game, thus the same title could be licensed/published under a different label, just not by the publisher licensed for the game by Nintendo. (there were lots of other restrictions for licensees like the 2 games per year per publisher without Nintendo's express permission, etc)

For example, Sega licensed Double Dragon for the SMS and released it about the same time (or slightly earlier) than the NES conversion iirc. (the Activision published Atari games came a year later iirc)

That's why I said earlier that Atari would have been good to offer a loophole license agreement whereby 3rd parties could publish their games through Atari's label but otherwise be independent. (no commissions by Atari, not necessarily having Atari doing any manufacturing, perhaps not even royalties to Atari -at least once Atari was in such a bad position and having more games even without royalties would have been attractive)

 

 

I disagree. Atari Corp. sued Nintendo on antitrust grounds because the publishers could not only not publish on other consoles if they were already licensees to the NES but they also couldn't license those games to other platforms for others to publish. That didn't loosen up until 1988/89 because of the Atari Corp./Atari Games lawsuits and the threats of Federal intervention and lawsuits from other companies. Almost all the titles that appeared on the NES were exclusive to the NES until Nintendo got scared.

Then explain how there are many examples that contradict that going back to 1987/88 if not earlier. (several of Sega's own games were licensed and released on Nintendo platforms as well and within 2 years of their release on the SMS/Mk.III)

 

Double Dragon is certainly the most obvious example though.

 

 

Besides, saying "I disagree" seems a bit odd, like you're posing an opinion: if you have facts regarding the specifics of Nintendo's contracts, then say so, opinions do matter in this context.

 

I haven't seen a really comprehensive outline of their policies, so I'm not positive myself. (going by what's available to me on the subject and interpreting it as best as possible)

 

If what you say is true then NEC would've been able to release all of the titles that were released on the PC Engine in Japan to the TurboGrafx-16 here in the US. Nintendo's licensing prevented even NES from sub-licensing those titles directly to NEC to self-publish.

Yes, I am saying that, and NEC screwed up in so many other ways, it's not really surprising that they'd have missed out on that. (after all, localizing all of those games would have required NEC to invest more, and lack of investment was their biggest fault: not spending enough for marketing, not willing to sell their hardware at or below cost, not willing to invest in US/EU software development, not willing to build up a US division to manage the PCE, etc, etc)

 

Besides, there were a lot of PCE games that were not multiplatform with the Famicom and still didn't make it over, so that makes the issue even more clear.

 

Nintendo was a proven hit in Japan, it had money, it had experience, and Atari [Corp.] was a cluster-**** in 1985/86 when the NES launched in the States. After 86, Nintendo had a large installed user base. Nintendo's restrictive policies were also thought to prevent another industry meltdown like 1983-84 from the glut of crummy games that destroyed Atari and its competitors.

It wasn't so much about the userbase, and it really wasn't until after the 1987 holiday season that Nintendo became the definitive/entrenched market leader as such. (they didn't become a national household name until after 1987 -in some regions they certainly were in '87, but not in many others per the nature of the US market)

 

It was more about Nintendo's aggression in the market and their hype/marketing that netted them the support of western 3rd parties on top of the existing Japanese support.

Hell, if it worked for the Jaguar with Atari in such a horrible position in '93, it should work for anybody. (that is, using hype to get general investor/developer/media interest even if you have very little to market by yourself -of course the jag fell apart later on, but it had enough hype to seriously shake up the market -the 32x/Mars project was in part a direct response to the Jaguar- and the Jag also had a very long list of sign-ons for licensed publishers)

 

That's also what some people seem to fail to realize with the 7800: even without Atari investing in 1st party games, strong marketing/hype would have been extremely influential in the marketplace. (both for generating sales and for getting 3rd party publisher interest)

It's actually quite ironic that the Jaguar actually had a lot more 1st and 3rd party software support than the 7800, in spite of Atari Corp's horrible position at the time of the Jag and the absolutely terrible hardware sales of the system. (as far as mass market game systems go -the 7800 sold more in 1986 in the US alone than there were Jaguars manufactured)

 

 

Also, a few US developers had already started developing for the Famicom before the NES had even materialized.

 

 

 

 

Oh, and after all that, Atari still had near 100% of European developers to commission/license games from (or attempt to court them to publish independently on the 7800). That included codemasters, perhaps the best unlicensed NES developer. (and a major player in the Euro software market who gradually transitioned from the budget side to general mass market publisher in the late 80s)

 

 

 

 

And another comment on "spend money to make money"

"Spending" doesn't have to come out of poket, and in most cases it doesn't, but comes from loans/investors instead.

The problem would have been that Atari Corp's credit was probably not very good at all in 1884-86 and they already had a major creditor with Warner's massive loans.

However, my '88, things had turned around and Atari Corp was near there peak. It was then that they were in a position to push hard for expansion assisted by investment/loans. (deficit spending can also be quite useful for a competitive edge, but is risky and would require careful planning to avoid serious problems -one of Sega's problems in the early 90s was sustained defict spending from constant investment and expansion rather than shifting to profits, not only did the rapid growth contribute to some bloat in the company and instability, but the sustained deficits/investing in capital put Sega in a weaker position when the mid 90s slump hit and when they fell into a rut of their own management problems -and thus were stuck with investment capital rather than reserves of liquid assets as Nintendo had accrued -that's also one reason Katz may have been a better President than Kalinske, Katz seems to be a bit more level headed from what I know of his business practices, willing to take risks, but also willing to temper them and meet a budget)

 

I'm a bit ignorant of business law, but maybe Tramiel could have even invested his private funds as loans to Atari Corp and acted as a creditor rather than sinking money in directly as such. (or is it illegal to be both a shareholder and creditor of a firm?)

 

 

Using private funds is definitely reserved as a last-ditch effort for most large corporations, and often an act of desperation. (ie what Okawa did for Sega by supplementing massive funds to Sega out of pocket -and then leaving even more after he died along with forgiving all debt owed to CSK)

Hmm, that would imply that it IS legal to be both an investor/employee and a creditor to a corporation, at least in Japan. (though their business laws are less strict than the US iirc)

Edited March 15, 2011 by kool kitty89

[toptenmaterial]

Does Kool Kitty ever sleep? Once again thanks for sharing your wealth of knowlege. It will be interesting to watch this next console war, which believe is nearly upon us. This generation has been the longest, I think, which is odd considering how pervasive affordable technology is, and how much quicker it is progressing.

[toptenmaterial]

To what you had said regarding Nintendo's pushing mascots "after the fact", it does seem that the NES was building up a lot of steam in the early days with pre-crash type games. It seems that my notion of SMB ending the crash was over-simplified and wrong.

[SpaceDice2010]

 

As for the licenses: it only applied to publishing iirc, not license of a specific game, thus the same title could be licensed/published under a different label, just not by the publisher licensed for the game by Nintendo. (there were lots of other restrictions for licensees like the 2 games per year per publisher without Nintendo's express permission, etc)

For example, Sega licensed Double Dragon for the SMS and released it about the same time (or slightly earlier) than the NES conversion iirc. (the Activision published Atari games came a year later iirc)

That's why I said earlier that Atari would have been good to offer a loophole license agreement whereby 3rd parties could publish their games through Atari's label but otherwise be independent. (no commissions by Atari, not necessarily having Atari doing any manufacturing, perhaps not even royalties to Atari -at least once Atari was in such a bad position and having more games even without royalties would have been attractive)

 

 

I disagree. Atari Corp. sued Nintendo on antitrust grounds because the publishers could not only not publish on other consoles if they were already licensees to the NES but they also couldn't license those games to other platforms for others to publish. That didn't loosen up until 1988/89 because of the Atari Corp./Atari Games lawsuits and the threats of Federal intervention and lawsuits from other companies. Almost all the titles that appeared on the NES were exclusive to the NES until Nintendo got scared.

Then explain how there are many examples that contradict that going back to 1987/88 if not earlier. (several of Sega's own games were licensed and released on Nintendo platforms as well and within 2 years of their release on the SMS/Mk.III)

 

Double Dragon is certainly the most obvious example though.

 

 

Besides, saying "I disagree" seems a bit odd, like you're posing an opinion: if you have facts regarding the specifics of Nintendo's contracts, then say so, opinions do matter in this context.

 

I haven't seen a really comprehensive outline of their policies, so I'm not positive myself. (going by what's available to me on the subject and interpreting it as best as possible)

 

Nintendo's policy was that publishers could release only five games per year and they had to be exclusive to Nintendo for two years.

[ATARI7800fan]

 

As for the licenses: it only applied to publishing iirc, not license of a specific game, thus the same title could be licensed/published under a different label, just not by the publisher licensed for the game by Nintendo. (there were lots of other restrictions for licensees like the 2 games per year per publisher without Nintendo's express permission, etc)

For example, Sega licensed Double Dragon for the SMS and released it about the same time (or slightly earlier) than the NES conversion iirc. (the Activision published Atari games came a year later iirc)

That's why I said earlier that Atari would have been good to offer a loophole license agreement whereby 3rd parties could publish their games through Atari's label but otherwise be independent. (no commissions by Atari, not necessarily having Atari doing any manufacturing, perhaps not even royalties to Atari -at least once Atari was in such a bad position and having more games even without royalties would have been attractive)

 

 

I disagree. Atari Corp. sued Nintendo on antitrust grounds because the publishers could not only not publish on other consoles if they were already licensees to the NES but they also couldn't license those games to other platforms for others to publish. That didn't loosen up until 1988/89 because of the Atari Corp./Atari Games lawsuits and the threats of Federal intervention and lawsuits from other companies. Almost all the titles that appeared on the NES were exclusive to the NES until Nintendo got scared.

Then explain how there are many examples that contradict that going back to 1987/88 if not earlier. (several of Sega's own games were licensed and released on Nintendo platforms as well and within 2 years of their release on the SMS/Mk.III)

 

Double Dragon is certainly the most obvious example though.

 

 

Besides, saying "I disagree" seems a bit odd, like you're posing an opinion: if you have facts regarding the specifics of Nintendo's contracts, then say so, opinions do matter in this context.

 

I haven't seen a really comprehensive outline of their policies, so I'm not positive myself. (going by what's available to me on the subject and interpreting it as best as possible)

 

Nintendo's policy was that publishers could release only five games per year and they had to be exclusive to Nintendo for two years.

 

That is correct. The reason games like double dragon where are multiple systems is because if a Arcade developer licensed there games to other companies the contracts only counted for the developers that signed up for it not the company that had originally created the game, which is what companies like Sega and the ones that owned Double Dragon did, a little loop hole that was hardly used.

[+wood_jl]

Does Kool Kitty ever sleep? Once again thanks for sharing your wealth of knowlege.

 

 

Exactly! And sometimes I don't get enough sleep, when I try to read those longest-of-all posts. But they're great!

[kool kitty89]

It will be interesting to watch this next console war, which believe is nearly upon us. This generation has been the longest, I think, which is odd considering how pervasive affordable technology is, and how much quicker it is progressing.

I think the longest any company has gone before jumping onboard for the next generation (for a home console, not a handheld) is Nintendo with the Famicom in 1983 to the Super Famicom in 1990.

If you discount the add-ons, the Genesis/MD was on the market for 6 years as well. (the Sega CD is a substantial enough add-on to put it into a separate system category -unlike the Famicom Disk system which had most/all games ported to the NES and added almost nothing beyond RAM to allow magnetic media to be used)

The PS2 also went for close to 6 years before a replacement.

 

However, you could argue that this is the longest the international market has gone without at least one company jumping into a new generation. (even if it's a newcomer or weakened competitor willing to jump the gun to compete)

People seem more willing to be content with aging hardware this generation than past ones and the recession has had an impact on that as well.

The very fact that the Wii came on the market with roughly 2002 class hardware (ie lower power/consolidated derivatives of hardware barely beyond the Game Cube and still inferior in several aspects to the original Xbox) and has been so successful is a testament to consumers being satisfied with much lower quality tech (and resulting limits in graphics/content) demonstrates the difference in the market as such. (albeit you could argue that no major company tried that approach -low cost hardware with a gimmick- prior to the Wii, or at least not for several generations and never with critical success -the Jaguar and the 32x had really been the last mass market attempts at pushing the low-cost angle and had failed, though not primarily due to targeting the lower end market either -and thus there was really a lack of historical examples of a company even properly designing AND organizing/supporting such a platform in the past)

 

 

To what you had said regarding Nintendo's pushing mascots "after the fact", it does seem that the NES was building up a lot of steam in the early days with pre-crash type games. It seems that my notion of SMB ending the crash was over-simplified and wrong.

I'm largely guessing here, but it seems like Nintendo saw a trend in popularity and recognition of certain character and ran with it. (you mentioned Donkey Kong, but DK really wasn't a major element of NES mascot type marketing -and you saw quite a few non Nintendo characters/franchises becoming associated primarily with Nintendo, at least in the US -sort of like you saw with Space Invaders and Pac Man in association with Atari)

[SpaceDice2010]

Nintendo actually had a strong library of launch titles. I was in college at the time and bought an NES over the 7800. The first two games I got were Baseball and Super Mario Bros.

[atarilovesyou]

Man, so much to read and catch up on!

 

My question is this: how did the whole Sega Dreamcast thing go down? As I remember, we're playing it in the fall of 99, loving it, Crazy Taxi, blown away by the sheer POWER of such a great system, fun games, cool controllers, a wicked Resident Evil game...and a few months later, GONE!!!...I mean, how exactly did that all happen?