Would Atari had been better off if Bushnell hadn´t sold it?

[roots.genoa]

2 hours ago, DavidD said:

Hmm... see, while I won't disagree that a large portion of the software would probably be derivative of the market leader, and thus a lot of cheaply produced titles, the NES did receive a rather large number of computer game ports.  I mean, everything from Cinemaware's stuff, to Ultima, Bard's Tale, Archon, MULE, Maniac Mansion, King's Quest... yes, that wasn't the majority of the market, but the NES had a fairly hefty influx of PC games from the 80s through the early 90s.  I'm not entirely sure if there was anything quite like that again until the PS/N64/Saturn era...

Exactly, I also thought about games like Shadowgate. If Leeroy feels there have been more on Genesis and PC Engine, it's maybe because some of the unusual Famicom games never left Japan. SEGA and NEC needed more games, so they were probably less picky for localizing games I guess.

[Leeroy ST]

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

Exactly, I also thought about games like Shadowgate. If Leeroy feels there have been more on Genesis and PC Engine, it's maybe because some of the unusual Famicom games never left Japan. SEGA and NEC needed more games, so they were probably less picky for localizing games I guess.

A good chunk of those NES pc ports were compromised by good margin or different games.

 

Most of the Genesis PC ports came after 1990 so the Genesis already had games at that point.

[Leeroy ST]

3 hours ago, DavidD said:

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Edited September 4, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[Leeroy ST]

3 hours ago, DavidD said:

Hmm... see, while I won't disagree that a large portion of the software would probably be derivative of the market leader, and thus a lot of cheaply produced titles, the NES did receive a rather large number of computer game ports.  I mean, everything from Cinemaware's stuff, to Ultima, Bard's Tale, Archon, MULE, Maniac Mansion, King's Quest... yes, that wasn't the majority of the market, but the NES had a fairly hefty influx of PC games from the 80s through the early 90s.  I'm not entirely sure if there was anything quite like that again until the PS/N64/Saturn era...

And as I said above a good number of bad ports or in some cases, changed games.

 

And many of which couldn't hold the consumers interest which is why many didn't sell to well.

 

The Intellivision had the typical Arcade fare but also imitated Computer style games early on near the start.

 

Coleco started strongly in superior arcade experience but moved toward computer genres and more complex arcade titles, and then started sharing games with the ADAM computer.

 

The 5200 eventually was having games ported from the A8.

 

With NES there was no possibility of the computer libraries merging with console games like today, but that was slowly happening before the NES.

 

But in either case regardless of the ports the NES was largely side scrollers and Arcade games in between, yes the NES had those. Whether they have computer ports or not (some late) doesn't really change the lack of variety in games in general, not just computer ports.

 

So with the NES variety was reduced significantly, not much evolution in gameplay for years, and outside of side scrolling tile based games almost every other feature of the NES was worse than previous consoles.

 

It was slow, with slower animation in many cases, screen tearing in some games, slowdown chugging, flicker, need tricks or basic graphics to have a lot of sprites on screen, no sprite size changes on the fly, instead sprites are stack on each other like in Contra, etc.

 

These were all steps back from other hardware. SMS had a lot of the same issues but some weren't as bad and it was stronger allowing it to use power to work around some issues.

 

Yet Sega seemed to do a better job at trying be be diverse than Nintendo did for a time. 

 

 

 

[Lostdragon]

More Misc UK Press.. 

 

More Nintendo being a threat.. 

 

Nintendo dropping Mattel 

 

Sam Tramiel plan to destroy Nintendo 

 

Nolan Bushnell Petsters 

 

Atari moving ST away from games. 

 

 

Atari accused of using the press to get attention. 

 

More woes for Epyx. 

 

 

Amiga to be turned into a cartridge based console.. 

Edited September 4, 2021 by Lostdragon

[Leeroy ST]

3 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

You can also add YT into being a massive factor in rewriting history now, but that's a subject in itself. 

Oh Youtube prolonged a lot of misinformation that was starting to stabilize. 

 

Man you could make a book of all the Youtuber sensationalized history.

 

Worse is people take them at face value. Especially if the have "historian" "professor" or "museum" in their channel name. But even then there are some people who still believe others just because.

 

Then you have guys who know they dont have real info but still push bad info so they can get the ad clicks and views 

[Lostdragon]

Bit more UK Press.. 

 

Lynx, annouced but never released Atari machines, signs US Crash effecting the UK.. 

 

Atari offloading unsold 800 XLmachines. 

 

Misc Ninteno

 

Etc etc

 

 

Might be of use to someone. 

 

 

If nothing else it's a bit of UK coverage to show how the platforms were covered over here. 

 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2021 by Lostdragon

[Lostdragon]

Home Computing Weekly reporting on Atari being sold and in same issue, a writer claiming the US market was changing away from being Games oriented.. 

[high voltage]

I've got a PETSTER

 

[leech]

4 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

More Misc UK Press.. 

 

More Nintendo being a threat.. 

 

Nintendo dropping Mattel 

 

Sam Tramiel plan to destroy Nintendo 

 

Nolan Bushnell Petsters 

 

Atari moving ST away from games. 

 

 

Atari accused of using the press to get attention. 

 

More woes for Epyx. 

 

 

Amiga to be turned into a cartridge based console.. 

Mega STe designed for Mac Networking!  Drivers never made!  I think at one point I found something for the Falcon...

 

Are most of these magazines on archive.org at this point?

[Leeroy ST]

Relevant for NES boredom/lack of variety&experienced etc:

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's also worth mentioning that while Genesis and SNES eventually prolonged a dive they didn't grow the industry much and it crashed in 1993 onward until the game types started radically changing after late 96. Just 1993-95 alone was more than a $3 billion drop:

 

The record Aug 23,1993:

 

Times 1995:

 

Over $6 billion to $2.5 billion is a ~$3.5 billion drop. Bigger than the 80's and in a slightly shorter timeframe. That's not including the first part of 96 where it would shrink a bit more before the rebound.

 

3DOs finally taking off (then dying) with PSX post Crash bandicoot soaring, and the initial great launch if the N64 all in 1996, basically shot the industry back up and it would hit ~$5 billion by end 97. 

 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[DavidD]

22 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

But in either case regardless of the ports the NES was largely side scrollers and Arcade games in between, yes the NES had those. Whether they have computer ports or not (some late) doesn't really change the lack of variety in games in general, not just computer ports.

 

So with the NES variety was reduced significantly, not much evolution in gameplay for years, and outside of side scrolling tile based games almost every other feature of the NES was worse than previous consoles.

 

It was slow, with slower animation in many cases, screen tearing in some games, slowdown chugging, flicker, need tricks or basic graphics to have a lot of sprites on screen, no sprite size changes on the fly, instead sprites are stack on each other like in Contra, etc.

 

These were all steps back from other hardware.

 

See, I might be being silly here, but I get the vague impression that you are generally dismissive of NES/Famicom titles in general.

 

This is somewhat subjective, but "lack of variety" seems to be a somewhat difficult charge to make... do you mean that there was a greater variety of gameplay types on pre-Famicom home game systems, or do you mean that you feel "most Famicom/NES games were the same kind of game"?  Those are rather different points -- I feel like you mean the second, but I could be wrong.

 

Tied to that -- which specific pre-Famicom/NES consoles are you comparing the hardware to that were better in terms of things like "sprite size changes on the fly", etc?  I'm probably just forgetting them, but I'm struggling to think of similar systems with better performance/graphics from 1983 and before.

[Lostdragon]

17 hours ago, leech said:

Mega STe designed for Mac Networking!  Drivers never made!  I think at one point I found something for the Falcon...

 

Are most of these magazines on archive.org at this point?

I would assume most have been archived by a good few sites, Retromags etc. 

 

I had a lot of Morts Magazine scans on CD and DVD that i had been looking through for info for likes of GTW and Unseen64. 

 

Had transfered a lot of clippings onto various devices, went through them doing some house cleaning on my works shutdown. 

 

Thought i would throw some randoms up ?

 

 

 

[roots.genoa]

20 minutes ago, DavidD said:

I get the vague impression that you are generally dismissive of NES/Famicom titles in general.

Just "vague"? Most of his topics and posts here are about being dismissive of Nintendo. ?

 

I can understand the bias towards Nintendo in the media can be annoying, but I feel his hatred makes him not that much more relevant than the people he criticizes. Leeroy's specialty is to caricature what journalists and YouTubers claim to counter them easily. For instance:

• people claim RPGs appeared first on the NES: That's obviously wrong, but NES introduced what was called "light RPGs" at the time, inspired by CRPG and that were not really available on pre-NES consoles (but they obviously were on computers, since light RPGs were mostly influenced by Wizardry).
• people claim Super Mario 64 was the "first third person game with a free camera": that's a description so vague it's obviously wrong as well. Leeroy claimed Nintendo fans would not accept games like Mechwarrior as a precursor because you control a vehicle and not a humanoid character, but that's not the point. SM64 was not even the first 3D platformer anyway (Alpha Waves was), but no one can deny it had a huge influence on that genre. And it doesn't matter if it was inspired by an Argonaut demo that eventually became Croc, since Croc is not as good as SM64 - and I don't even like SM64. But no, for Leeroy, Quake and Tomb Raider were the only important video games in 1996. ?‍♂️
• people claim the NES was a worldwide success: well, of course you can find countries like the UK or Brazil where the NES was not not as popular as the Master System, and even where it was successful, it sometimes took one or two years to happen (like in France for instance). But what does it change? ?‍♂️
• etc.

He even accused zzip of being a Nintendo fanboy while the guy didn't even have a Nintendo system until the GBA.

Edited September 5, 2021 by roots.genoa

[Leeroy ST]

2 hours ago, DavidD said:

See, I might be being silly here, but I get the vague impression that you are generally dismissive of NES/Famicom titles in general.

 

This is somewhat subjective, but "lack of variety" seems to be a somewhat difficult charge to make... do you mean that there was a greater variety of gameplay types on pre-Famicom home game systems, or do you mean that you feel "most Famicom/NES games were the same kind of game"?  Those are rather different points -- I feel like you mean the second, but I could be wrong.

 

Tied to that -- which specific pre-Famicom/NES consoles are you comparing the hardware to that were better in terms of things like "sprite size changes on the fly", etc?  I'm probably just forgetting them, but I'm struggling to think of similar systems with better performance/graphics from 1983 and before.

I posted articles that showed this that you conveniently skipped. There's no bias involved with an easily searchable library of titles and counting which game types. Considering I mentioned game types multiple times it should be obvious I meant the former.

 

2 hours ago, DavidD said:

Tied to that -- which specific pre-Famicom/NES consoles are you comparing the hardware to that were better in terms of things like "sprite size changes on the fly", etc?  I'm probably just forgetting them, but I'm struggling to think of similar systems with better performance/graphics from 1983 and before.

You're joking right? You do realize NES in many cases had to stack sprites to make large sprites right? It's a default limitation of a tile based system.

 

Nes (without help) can't have 5 Mario sized sprites move and enlarge themselves into a contra boss sized sprite, and back again moving across the screen instantly in real time. With help it can somewhat do it with limitations but it wouldn't be as fast either way.

 

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

He even accused zzip of being a Nintendo fanboy while the guy didn't even have a Nintendo system until the GBA.

Already a thing proven here before, nothing is stopping him from being a current NES fanboy because he got it years later, he had a whole threat attacking Atari ignoring others explanations for the 7800 (and 2600 jr) and how Nintendo did everything right and Atari wasn't trying and he was upset his favorite NES games from as late as the 90's were not on the 7800 and etc.

 

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

• people claim Super Mario 64 was the "first third person game with a free camera": that's a description so vague it's obviously wrong as well. Leeroy claimed Nintendo fans would not accept games like Mechwarrior as a precursor because you control a vehicle and not a humanoid character, but that's not the point. SM64 was not even the first 3D platformer anyway (Alpha Waves was), but no one can deny it had a huge influence on that genre. 

And this is what's wrong with people who can't handle criticism of Nintendo.

 

Yes it was the point because those were the claims, and those claims artificially boosted the N64s pedigree. Influence was never part of the conversation, it's just a cowardly tactic to punt the topic.

 

SM64 wasn't the first with a free camera, yes Nintendo fans dismiss Mechwarrior because it's not a character despite being easily replaced with one, yes they said and people still believe SM64 was the first 3D game, or first 3D game with non-linear levels.

 

Guess what. All those were the point and all those were wrong.

 

"No one can deny the influence" is irrelevant, at that point you're creating an argument no one made. This is a constant problem because there's a heavy resistance to outright just admitting the above points are wrong and moving on.

 

Then they go "bias against Nintendo" nope. There's no bias, just the accusers not being able to accept the facts and trying to twist the discussion.

 

I like the Gamecube but do I suddenly dislike the Gamecube because I point out the Wavebird was not the first wireless controller? no. Yet that's exactly what people like roots.genoa accuse you of. There's nothing wrong with admitting they didn't do something first without creating a fake argument that didn't exist before.

 

 

 

Abruptly adding influence to a topic it wasn't originally involved in, is also frequently used to dismiss the games used to prove the claims wrong too.

Edited September 5, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[+x=usr(1536)]

[toiletunes]

I've learned a lot from this thread.

Mainly, how not to debate.

[agradeneu]

2 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

 

 

You're joking right? You do realize NES in many cases had to stack sprites to make large sprites right? It's a default limitation of a tile based system.

 

Nes (without help) can't have 5 Mario sized sprites move and enlarge themselves into a contra boss sized sprite, and back again moving across the screen instantly in real time. With help it can somewhat do it with limitations but it wouldn't be as fast either way.

 

 

That is true. But even Genesis and SNES  are tile based graphics systems and doing the same tricks with sprites.     

[leech]

Fans of things are funny.  They will claim that the company they are a fan of invented this or that.  And when you prove them wrong, then they go to the "but they did it better and they are remembered for making it good."  I hear this all the time about Apple.

Personally I loved Atari and then as they fizzled out of the console market, I went with Sega.  The Master System was an extremely capable little machine.  Even these days I play a game on it and am amazed how good it looks for an 8bit machine.  NES games mostly make mw think the Atari 800 is capable of doing most things it can do, if the right coder puts forth the effort.  Look at Adventure II XE!

[Leeroy ST]

12 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

That is true. But even Genesis and SNES  are tile based graphics systems and doing the same tricks with sprites.     

Genesis can at times work around that, as seen with it's scaler arcade ports, though with notable limitations. And without an enhancer chip too.

 

 

Edited September 5, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[agradeneu]

12 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Genesis can at times work around that, as seen with it's scaler arcade ports, though limited in comparison.

 

 

Ironically, most Genesis games are 2D platform, shmups and JRPG games, just like on the NES. Even the NES had some pseudo 3D games with "scaled" sprites like Top Gun or Knight Rider.

Unlike the Lynx, the Genesis and the NES have no hardware sprite scaling.  

 

Knight Rider on the NES: 

 

 

 

 

BTW, to me it looks like the NES can handle "changing sprite sizes on the fly"!

 

 

 

 

Edited September 5, 2021 by agradeneu

[Leeroy ST]

9 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

Ironically, most Genesis games are 2D platform, shmups and JRPGS games, just like on the NES. Even the NES had some pseudo 3D games with sprites like Top Gun or Knight Rider.

There was a lack of developer interest to really use that part of the Genesis capabilities. 

 

Yeah it couldn't do the 90's modern stuff seen on some computers or arcades but it was able to handle the stuff you saw in the mid 80's. 

 

I suppose since the Japanese developers were riding the wagon on those genres since NEC and SNES were much more popular in Japan, the western Genesis devs followed their lead. Although we did get a few exceptions from third parties like Burning Force from Namco for pseudo 3D.

 

If Genesis was more popular in japan and those scaler ports sold better maybe more developers would have done those.

 

Instead we didn't see that take shape until the Saturn. For a very short period of time.

 

 

Edited September 5, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[agradeneu]

18 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

There was a lack of developer interest to really use that part of the Genesis capabilities. 

 

Yeah it couldn't do the 90's modern stuff seen on some computers or arcades but it was able to handle the stuff you saw in the mid 80's. 

 

I suppose since the Japanese developers were riding the wagon on those genres since NEC and SNES were much more popular in Japan, the western Genesis devs followed their lead. Although we did get a few exceptions from third parties like Burning Force from Namco for pseudo 3D.

 

If Genesis was more popular in japan and those scaler ports sold better maybe more developers would have done those.

 

Instead we didn't see that take shape until the Saturn. For a very short period of time.

 

 

 The Genesis was not really build for 3D games and it is quite limited what you could achieve for that, compared to 2D scrolling games with sprites, where it really excelled (compared to 8 bit consoles)

The PC Engine/TurboGrafx, SNES, the NEOGEO, all were designed for 2D sprite games. 

Of course, you can do 3D on any hardware, question is if that makes sense if your games look ugly and play poorly.

 

If you look from a gamers POV, the great 2D games aged like fine wine, while most early 3D games aged not well because they were more about technology than entertaining gameplay. 

That might explain why the NES is still a very highly regarded system with great games you can enjoy even by todays standards.

(The NES Mini was a great success, while the Playstation Mini flopped.)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 5, 2021 by agradeneu

[Leeroy ST]

14 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

 The Genesis was not really build for 3D games and it is quite limited what you could achieve for that, compared to 2D scrolling games with sprites, where it really excelled (compared to 8 bit consoles)

The PC Engine/TurboGrafx, SNES, the NEOGEO, all were designed for 2D sprite games. 

Of course, you can do 3D on any hardware, question is if that makes sense if your games look ugly and play poorly.

 

If you look from a gamers POV, the great 2D games aged like fine wine, while most early 3D games aged not well because they were more about technology than entertaining gameplay. 

That might explain why the NES is still a very highly regarded system with great games you can enjoy even by todays standards.

(The NES Mini was a great success, while the Playstation Mini flopped.)

 

 

 

 

 

That's mostly polygons not pseudo 3D games. Which are still sprites.

 

The Genesis was made to handle ports of earlier scaler games. I'm sure we would have had more if the Genesis was more popular in japan.

 

Especially with third parties 

[Leeroy ST]

41 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

.  

 

Knight Rider on the NES: 

 

 

 

 

BTW, to me it looks like the NES can handle "changing sprite sizes on the fly"!

 

 

 

 

That's not what's happening, it's swapping out different sprites to make the illusionsl the cars are actually changing/getting closer in real time. Its not actually scaling.

 

It's also very simple to keep the speed.