Comparing the NES and 7800 on a technical level

[Andromeda Stardust]

I read the article linked earlier regarding the lawsuit. In it: "Nintendo attorney John Kirby"

 

Soo00, did this have anything to do with the Poke'mon named Kirby?

 

LOL

 

 

Kirby may look like a Pokemon but he's not a Pokemon.

 

You calling Kirby a Pokemon just made me puke in my mouth a little

He may have confused Kirby with Jigglypuff?

[DracIsBack]

 

 

 

 

Edited July 3, 2018 by DracIsBack

[John Stamos Mullet]

Every character Nintendo ever created looks like a damn Pokemon. Hate that way too cartoon-y, soft and cuddly crap.

[kiwilove]

It would be nice if someone could post a video showing the best of NES vs 7800 comparisons - also with demos, etc that show how far can it's hardware be pushed? Otherwise it's the 'Let's Compare' videogames videos to show some comparisons.

But with NES titles you can see that big companies are involved with their production - who have huge resources they are willing to pour into the game projects. The same cannot be said for the 7800 - while it's initial line-up does have the big name titles - later games are lacking - and smaller independent companies are made use of.

With the likes of Plutos and Sirius to show off the 7800 hardware - coming from Tynesoft. Had these been finished - they would have been adjusted for playability - maybe further additions could have been made to them?

But with such comparisions - are you not comparing the competency of the programmers involved - more?

These days - you have the homebrew developers - who are true enthusiasts as such - to want to develop for these outdated systems. Most would be working on their projects solely for the joy and satisfaction of doing so because there is no or little financial reward for their effort. Maybe they can produce something truly special - by having the memory available to do what they want with it - but also make use of development tools (graphic editors and assemblers etc) not available back in the day - or create their own tools - which can be better than any available back in the day? Emulators can be made use of - for testing purposes and debugging?

 

I believe Tower Toppler first appeared on the C-64 - titled Nebulus - so this is a conversion of it. It does show a certain level of innovation in it's game design and execution of it.

 

Harvey

Edited July 3, 2018 by kiwilove

[christo930]

 

There are a few reasons that have been tossed around throughout the years.

 

1. It absolutely, positively 100% was a design goal to make the 7800 backward compatible with the 2600 because the 5200 had taken heat for not having been. The TIA was used in the 7800's design for backwards compatibility with the 2600.

 

2. GCC always intended for the 7800 to be able to include sound chips in the cartridge to go over and above what the TIA could offer. This wasn't an afterthought of "Oh crap, it's behind, let's just do something". The idea was always there and Ballblazer (an intended launch title) was the proof of concept to show it. However, the cartridge design was not limited to POKEY and the plan was to create a low cost POKEY successor (GUMBY) that could be commonly used. If anything, POKEY was the proof of concept but GUMBY was was the expected execution of the vision.

 

It's discussed at length here, in the 7800's history, in the MP3

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/7800/7800-20th/

 

 

3. There was definitely some speculation as to whether POKEY was excluded because of cost/space reasons and also it was speculated that GCC would "sell" Atari chips, but not sure what their royalty agreements were surrounding this. Definitely makes sense from GCCs perspective.

 

Regardless, the 7800 got released, GCC got paid off and the vision that the 7800 realized under the Tramiels was very different than the vision dreamed up by GCC.

Thanks for the link, I'll definitely listen to that.

 

But it still just comes off as a really dumb design decision. Even if the GUMBY chip had been developed, it just makes zero sense to put it in cartridges (and to plan that from the start). They had to be aware that this chip would, no matter what the cost of the chip itself, drive up the cost of manufacturing cartridges. It had to be cheap enough to allow games with the chip to be price competitive, which meant the chip had to be really cheap. If the chip is so cheap that it effectively would not affect the price of the game (or to such a small degree that it doesn't matter), then by definition, it's cheap enough to just put in the console.

 

As I said, if the design was already finished or close to it and then this came along, well then it makes sense. But to plan to do this right from the start is just a bad idea. The TIA was/is not 'good enough' so that most games wouldn't need the GUMBY. It should have been clear from very early on that the TIA sound just wasn't up to the task of being a modern game machine of that time. To strip down the POKEY chip even more to this GUMBY chip also seems a bad idea. It was already several years old at the time they were designing this.

 

Hopefully this link will address this and also, it would be nice to know why Atari was having GCC design their next-gen console in the first place. The fact that they built into the 7800, the need to purchase GCC chips in large quantities is a very good reason to show what a bad idea this really was. I would love to have been the Atari executive who gets the news that the people designing our next system is going to be a supplier of chips that will need to go into the games! Every game we make that needs decent sound will need a GCC chip! How convenient! Great work, if you can get it!

[DracIsBack]

It would be nice if someone could post a video showing the best of NES vs 7800 comparisons - also with demos, etc that show how far can it's hardware be pushed? Otherwise it's the 'Let's Compare' videogames videos to show some comparisons.

 

I think you answered your own question. Given that the NES was the most popular system, it attracted the biggest developers, the biggest budgets, the most productivity, the most "let's push this to see what we can do through generation, 3, 4 and 5 etc". Because the market supported that and also because the developers were in competition to stand out over competing NES developers for sales.

 

Not to say that the 7800 didn't show hints of going in a certain direction, but you never saw Radioactive Software make a Midnight Mutant 2, Midnight Mutants 3 and Midnight Mutants 4, with games becoming 4 megabits in size, including an MMC type chip and being in development for 18 months.

 

One of my examples that often gets cited in comparisons is Double Dragon. It's often used as an example of why the NES was 'better' than the 7800. It certainly looks and sounds better. It has tighter controls.

 

But is the 7800 version the best it could possibly be? The 7800 version is 128K. The NES and SMS ones are 256K ... on cartridges twice the size. The NES version ships with an MMC 1 chip onboard. Does the 7800 ship with a POKEY or any other cartridge enhancement? Nope. The NES one was done (I think) by Technos Japan for Tradewest, who did the original arcade version. The 7800 one was done by Imagineering who did cheap port stuff like "Fight Night" and "Touchdown Football".

 

Even when you look at the physical game, corners seem to have been cut. The Jimmy Lee sprite is the same as the enemies in spots. The Abobos look like the wrestlers from Title Match Wrestling. Some of the AI is really stupid and sloppy. When the artwork was being recolored, the dev doing the changes found intended but unused artwork like boulders that were meant to be thrown but the code wasn't there. It felt to me like Activision said, "We bought this expensive license, we're taking a chance releasing it on an unknown platform ... keep the costs under control, getting done quickly and we can see how it performs in the market".

 

So when these discussions pop up, you have to ask yourself, was the port on either system really as good as it could have been, gvein business constraints? That's as much to do with the question as technical strengths and limits of the system.

I've always wondered ... how would 7800 Double Dragon have faired if Scultured Software (the guys who did Commando) did it? And if they were allowed a 256K cart, a year of dev, a POKEY on board and maybe extra RAM?

 

But Atari generally disuaded the use of big cartridges, RAM on board and POKEY chips in favour of costs. Activision certainly didn't try to set up and push for this either with their releases.

[DracIsBack]

As I said, if the design was already finished or close to it and then this came along, well then it makes sense. But to plan to do this right from the start is just a bad idea. The TIA was/is not 'good enough' so that most games wouldn't need the GUMBY. It should have been clear from very early on that the TIA sound just wasn't up to the task of being a modern game machine of that time. To strip down the POKEY chip even more to this GUMBY chip also seems a bad idea. It was already several years old at the time they were designing this.

 

Sorta agree, sorta don't. On one hand, the 7800's sound was really "behind" out of the box. On the other hand, in the grand scheme of reasons for the 7800 failing in the market place, I actually think "OMG the awful sound" has relatively little to do with it compared to the kid asking

 

"Does it play Mario? Does it play Zelda? Does it play Castlevana? Does it play Temco Bowl? Does it play home versions of my favorite arcade games? Can I rent games? Do my friends have it?"

 

Even in a store setting with all the noise around, systems behind glass etc, I'd argue that kids trying out the 7800 in the store probably didn't hear or hear well the sound that it had in many cases. We retrogamers bemoan the sound and long for the Commando/Ballblazer use case, but I suspect it had much less bearing on why the kids in 1986 purchased or didn't.

[mbd30]

 

Sorta agree, sorta don't. On one hand, the 7800's sound was really "behind" out of the box. On the other hand, in the grand scheme of reasons for the 7800 failing in the market place, I actually think "OMG the awful sound" has relatively little to do with it compared to the kid asking

 

"Does it play Mario? Does it play Zelda? Does it play Castlevana? Does it play Temco Bowl? Does it play home versions of my favorite arcade games? Can I rent games? Do my friends have it?"

 

Even in a store setting with all the noise around, systems behind glass etc, I'd argue that kids trying out the 7800 in the store probably didn't hear or hear well the sound that it had in many cases. We retrogamers bemoan the sound and long for the Commando/Ballblazer use case, but I suspect it had much less bearing on why the kids in 1986 purchased or didn't.

 

Yeah. The the main issue with the 7800 was that the NES was getting all of the hottest new games and the 7800 was not.

 

The 7800's biggest selling point was its backwards compatibility with the 2600. That's why my mom bought it back in the day.

[+DrVenkman]

… it would be nice to know why Atari was having GCC design their next-gen console in the first place.

 

By the time Atari was looking to replace the commercially-unsuccessful 5200 (mid-1983 or so), they had very little time to develop a next-gen system and get it to market: roughly a year, including everything from full system specs, custom silicon, PCB layout, case design and expensive injection-molding equipment by their contractors, marketing materials and some semblance of software to include with the console launch. Given the market conditions and drastically-changed consumer videogame market of mid-1983, and the very limited internal resources of Atari, Inc. in 1983 (as compared to 1976 - 1980 or so), that's not much time at all.

 

Remember, Jay Miner, Joe DeCuir and some other key VLSI chip/hardware types had already left the company and were setting the stage for what became Amiga (which, ironically, *could/should* have been an Atari, Inc. product had Amiga - with Commodore's secret backing - not reneged on the deal). So Atari had very limited internal resources for a new commercial game system. GCC was seemingly the ideal partner to team up with under the circumstance. If you're unfamiliar with that company's history, it's work reading up on. Those guys were brilliant software and hardware design guys, really. They were responsible for many - maybe most - of Atari, Inc.'s later excellent 2600 titles and basically all of the 7800 launch library. I'm pretty sure GUMBY was really intended to be cheap for the time, especially in the multimillion-unit quantities that would've been used had the chip come to fruition quickly enough to included in most 7800 games including 3rd party titles - something like a buck each retail, and maybe half that wholesale. The idea was that it would be so cheap publishers would want to include it on their carts as a selling feature.

 

As an aside, I wonder if Curt & Marty have any idea from their research over the years how many POKEY chips were produced between 1979 and 1989 or so, or whenever production stopped. I gather something on the order of 2 million A8 computers were made, plus a few hundred thousand 5200's, plus many tens of thousands of arcade cabinets.

Edited July 4, 2018 by DrVenkman

[kiwilove]

.........

Not to say that the 7800 didn't show hints of going in a certain direction, but you never saw Radioactive Software make a Midnight Mutant 2, Midnight Mutants 3 and Midnight Mutants 4, with games becoming 4 megabits in size, including an MMC type chip and being in development for 18 months.

 

One of my examples that often gets cited in comparisons is Double Dragon. It's often used as an example of why the NES was 'better' than the 7800. It certainly looks and sounds better. It has tighter controls.

 

But is the 7800 version the best it could possibly be? The 7800 version is 128K. The NES and SMS ones are 256K ... on cartridges twice the size. The NES version ships with an MMC 1 chip onboard. Does the 7800 ship with a POKEY or any other cartridge enhancement? Nope. The NES one was done (I think) by Technos Japan for Tradewest, who did the original arcade version. The 7800 one was done by Imagineering who did cheap port stuff like "Fight Night" and "Touchdown Football".

 

Even when you look at the physical game, corners seem to have been cut. The Jimmy Lee sprite is the same as the enemies in spots. The Abobos look like the wrestlers from Title Match Wrestling. Some of the AI is really stupid and sloppy. When the artwork was being recolored, the dev doing the changes found intended but unused artwork like boulders that were meant to be thrown but the code wasn't there. It felt to me like Activision said, "We bought this expensive license, we're taking a chance releasing it on an unknown platform ... keep the costs under control, getting done quickly and we can see how it performs in the market".

 

So when these discussions pop up, you have to ask yourself, was the port on either system really as good as it could have been, gvein business constraints? That's as much to do with the question as technical strengths and limits of the system.

I've always wondered ... how would 7800 Double Dragon have faired if Scultured Software (the guys who did Commando) did it? And if they were allowed a 256K cart, a year of dev, a POKEY on board and maybe extra RAM?

 

But Atari generally disuaded the use of big cartridges, RAM on board and POKEY chips in favour of costs. Activision certainly didn't try to set up and push for this either with their releases.

 

Homebrew developers today do not face the same constraints as BitD and can take the opportunity to use as much memory as they like to? But most seem to want to stick to what was OK BitD - but I take the opposite view - that I like to see the graphics particularly updated - that this is the year 2018 - so why not use what resources we have today - and put as much graphics upgrade as possible in the game - and this looks very effective with added animation going on. I'm a graphics guy - and I like purty graphics - sure, they don't anything extra to the gameplay - but if the game does have solid gameplay (as per the classics) - having really nice graphics does make the experience more enjoyable?

But it takes a programmer who likes the same to be present. Even standard games needs their graphics to be fitting in well.

Arguments easily develop - when criticism is seen to be negative/destructive when it is not intended to be that way. Graphic styles can be hugely personal - turning into either likes or dislikes.

Anyway I think enthusiasts can produce games that can show what potential the outdated hardware still have - within it's resources - if they want to go that route.

 

I do want to work on some 7800 graphics - if I can be of help in some projects?

 

Harvey

Edited July 4, 2018 by kiwilove

[christo930]

 

Sorta agree, sorta don't. On one hand, the 7800's sound was really "behind" out of the box. On the other hand, in the grand scheme of reasons for the 7800 failing in the market place, I actually think "OMG the awful sound" has relatively little to do with it compared to the kid asking

 

"Does it play Mario? Does it play Zelda? Does it play Castlevana? Does it play Temco Bowl? Does it play home versions of my favorite arcade games? Can I rent games? Do my friends have it?"

 

Even in a store setting with all the noise around, systems behind glass etc, I'd argue that kids trying out the 7800 in the store probably didn't hear or hear well the sound that it had in many cases. We retrogamers bemoan the sound and long for the Commando/Ballblazer use case, but I suspect it had much less bearing on why the kids in 1986 purchased or didn't.

 

Since we're in fantasy land, none of these games exist at the time of the launch because it was launched well before NES came to America.

[atarian63]

7800 had Pro Controllers, NES had some messed-up wrong way around control pads, made for Japanese guys

that was my view at the time we got a couple in from the NY release in 85 and they didn't sell.people were however asking for the 7800 which wasn't released yet

[atarian63]

Sorta agree, sorta don't. On one hand, the 7800's sound was really "behind" out of the box. On the other hand, in the grand scheme of reasons for the 7800 failing in the market place, I actually think "OMG the awful sound" has relatively little to do with it compared to the kid asking

"Does it play Mario? Does it play Zelda? Does it play Castlevana? Does it play Temco Bowl? Does it play home versions of my favorite arcade games? Can I rent games? Do my friends have it?"

Even in a store setting with all the noise around, systems behind glass etc, I'd argue that kids trying out the 7800 in the store probably didn't hear or hear well the sound that it had in many cases. We retrogamers bemoan the sound and long for the Commando/Ballblazer use case, but I suspect it had much less bearing on why the kids in 1986 purchased or didn't.

 

in 86 none of those were available and it was laughed out of our store till Mario Bro came out late86

[Andromeda Stardust]

Every character Nintendo ever created looks like a damn Pokemon. Hate that way too cartoon-y, soft and cuddly crap.

No.

 

If you actually played Nintendo games, you wouldn't feel this way about them.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Homebrew developers today do not face the same constraints as BitD and can take the opportunity to use as much memory as they like to? But most seem to want to stick to what was OK BitD - but I take the opposite view - that I like to see the graphics particularly updated - that this is the year 2018 - so why not use what resources we have today - and put as much graphics upgrade as possible in the game - and this looks very effective with added animation going on. I'm a graphics guy - and I like purty graphics - sure, they don't anything extra to the gameplay - but if the game does have solid gameplay (as per the classics) - having really nice graphics does make the experience more enjoyable?

But it takes a programmer who likes the same to be present. Even standard games needs their graphics to be fitting in well.

Arguments easily develop - when criticism is seen to be negative/destructive when it is not intended to be that way. Graphic styles can be hugely personal - turning into either likes or dislikes.

Anyway I think enthusiasts can produce games that can show what potential the outdated hardware still have - within it's resources - if they want to go that route.

 

I do want to work on some 7800 graphics - if I can be of help in some projects?

 

Harvey

This is a major reason why indies are so popular now. Simple games with modern graphics, but not insultingly simple like many smart phone games. You don't need to invest 200+ hours to reap all the benefits of pick up and play fun games.

[high voltage]

I never under on how Nintendo got away with it when developing for the NES you're not allowed making game for rival consoles. That smacks so of communism, and America let it happen. Bonkers.

[kiwilove]

You can easily say that Atari got too greedy - trying to milk the 2600 games market for as long as it could - when it should have been pushing it's lead with it's replacement - the Atari 400/800 and 5200 machines.

Nintendo made playing videogames fun again and pioneered the longer home based unique titles - with the likes of Mario, Zelda, Metroid and others.

Did I read/remember correctly that Nintendo was offered to Atari - but was turned down - so had to go it alone in the US.

 

But with it's success - Nintendo got to be too greedy by suing Tengen - who sought not to pay for Nintendo licensing as such. And Nintendo's seal of quality - wasn't really about 'quality' at all - but just some tick checking system to ensure that certain things were passed. You could say that the NES had it's fair share of awful titles amongst it's various gems.

 

Being first on the market with technical superior doesn't guarantee success - witness the Turbo grafx 16. Did this not have it's stellar titles in it's initial line-up to be successful?

 

Looking back - you could say that each system did have it's killer games - as they tried competing in the market place - and I think the systems that didn't have such titles - didn't do well at all - you can have as much titles as you like - like the Colecovision? Few titles stood out - to me - and so I never viewed as being a serious contender - more so, when I did see some of it's games running.

 

Harvey

[Andromeda Stardust]

I never under on how Nintendo got away with it when developing for the NES you're not allowed making game for rival consoles. That smacks so of communism, and America let it happen. Bonkers.

It would be like Apple telling developers they couldn't port apps to Android. Preposterous, but so true. If someone tried that in today's climate, not only would it be illegal, but your developers would quickly abandon ship for the competition.

[DracIsBack]

I never under on how Nintendo got away with it when developing for the NES you're not allowed making game for rival consoles. That smacks so of communism, and America let it happen. Bonkers.

 

Nintendo caved under pressure ultimately. There were lots of related cases and investigations against them around this time. Nintendo actually won many of the cases, but there was so much negatively publicity that ultimately they folded many of their controlling practices

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/11/business/nintendo-to-pay-25-million-in-rebates-on-price-fixing.html

 

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1989-03-31/entertainment/8903310353_1_atari-games-nintendo-licensee-nintendo-entertainment-system

 

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/05/01/Nintendo-wins-antitrust-suit/4471704692800/

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/the-only-game-in-town-nintendo-and-sega-are-masters-of-the-video-games-universe-including-the-price-1532827.html

[DracIsBack]

 

Did I read/remember correctly that Nintendo was offered to Atari - but was turned down - so had to go it alone in the US.

 

This is very much an urban myth, along the same legend as Jack Tramiel not wanting to do video games until the "hot new NES suddenly exploded" vein. It's all over the internet and even in some books but it's not even remotely as simple as this.

[+DrVenkman]

 

This is very much an urban myth, along the same legend as Jack Tramiel not wanting to do video games until the "hot new NES suddenly exploded" vein. It's all over the internet and even in some books but it's not even remotely as simple as this.

Curt and Marty have this covered in their book, by the way. Nintendo essentially wanted Atari to act as the marketing and production agency for the machine in the US in exchange for a relative pittance of cash, no ownership or interest in the underlying tech. Of course Warner corporate wasn’t interested in that kind of deal and neither were the games guys at Atari.

[DracIsBack]

Curt and Marty have this covered in their book, by the way. Nintendo essentially wanted Atari to act as the marketing and production agency for the machine in the US in exchange for a relative pittance of cash, no ownership or interest in the underlying tech. Of course Warner corporate wasn’t interested in that kind of deal and neither were the games guys at Atari.

 

Yes - i own the book. And of course there was interest or they wouldn't have done extensive meetings, due dilegence, technical comparisons etc. Both companies invested a fair bit in the process at a time when Atari was also going through massive changes.

 

Saying Atari "wasn't interested" or "turned Nintendo down" is a gross over-simplification of what actually happened.

[empsolo]

Curt and Marty have this covered in their book, by the way. Nintendo essentially wanted Atari to act as the marketing and production agency for the machine in the US in exchange for a relative pittance of cash, no ownership or interest in the underlying tech. Of course Warner corporate wasn’t interested in that kind of deal and neither were the games guys at Atari.

And yet they missed out on the hottest commodity of the late 80's. Super Mario Bros. A game that ended up cracking 40 million units sold world wide during it's lifetime from 1983 to the NES's discontinuation in the US in 1994. Even with that pittance, Atari would have made bank on Super Mario Bros. ALONE.

[DracIsBack]

There were absolutely pros and cons to the deal. Though, I always say - deals like this are hard to put together. I think many people don't realize how truly hard they are even under normal circumstances when things are going well (ie. by the time all the lawyers are done arguing about who indemnifies who in what circumstance and agree on language in the deal) unless they've been involved in a deal like this. Let alone when a company is constantly having layoffs, changes, new personnel and other distracting problems like Atari had at the time.

 

But this Nintendo thing is often distilled to, "Nintendo went to Atari, Atari said 'no', stupid Atari". Both companies invested a lot of time and effort to see if a deal could be put together and - like many business deals of this type do - it fell apart for a bunch of reasons.

[Lord Thag]

I think Atariage (and particularly Bob) have shown how good the 7800 could have been. The homebrew library makes it an entirely different console. The lack of money, games, launch delays and terrible marketing doomed it back in the 80s. But the homebrew market shows it could have done very well. It wasn't a lack of capability, it was a lack of funding and priority at Atari.

Edited July 5, 2018 by Lord Thag