How did you find out about The Crash(TM)?

[MrMaddog]

On 10/31/2022 at 11:40 PM, fiddlepaddle said:

Sounds like I did things a little differently... in Jr High, in the early 70's, I thought computers were super cool (though mine weren't super-cooled, I don't think). I used time sharing and mainframes and eventually an IBM 1130 mini and just was amazed at being able to write a program I could interact with. Computers were magic to me.

It was only later when I first saw a VCS at a Christmas party that I learned about a home game console. I'd always been attracted to pinball machines, but never really wanted much to do with those other mechanical arcade games. Then Space Invaders came around and changed everything in the world, it seemed.

I still had to wait a couple more years before I got out of college and finally had enough money to blow a little, and that's when the Colecovision and Vectrex came out and I went all in. By the time the crash came around, I was already fading on the consoles and was focusing on the amazing progression of microcomputers. But my programming energy was burned on work, so collecting games became a complimentary distraction. I noticed prices falling and also noticed everyone seemed to be saying video games were a passing fad, but I knew computers would eventually be everywhere.

 

That's exactly how I saw home computers at the time, just a better way of playing video games only you can do more like program your own games and use the computer for other things that are more productive.  So what good was a dedicated console like the 2600 even if it did had the unreleased keyboard attachment?

 

I've read what other people where saying about moving on from gaming to other social activities so here's more of my life experiences just after the Crash...

 

While I continued to play games on my computer I also was into other things like action figures and transformable robots up until 7th grade.  Then I got more into computer programming because it was (and still is) a very lucrative career.  But back in the 80's being a computer "nerd" just wasn't cool because of all the movies & TV shows that re-enforced the negative stereotype.

 

I wasn't good at sports, even tried working out for a while before I injured my lower back.  And girls?  Let's say there ain't a logical way to deal with relationships...period!

 

My point is not everyone is cut out for programming and that's exactly what you had to do with the early home computers, they were a way to play around with programming in a inexpensive way.  But most people don't want to take the time to learn how to program because there are other things to be doing, especially as a teenager.  Adults who just wanted to use software for productive stuff like word processing got PC's instead.  And when console gaming made a comeback, younger kids prefer the "easier to play but better looking" NES.

 

Of course we now know that everything comes, goes & returns in cycles and any so-called expert who writes predictive articles are full of it anyway...

 

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

1 hour ago, MrMaddog said:

That's exactly how I saw home computers at the time, just a better way of playing video games only you can do more like program your own games and use the computer for other things that are more productive.

Precisely.  With the exception of the Vectrex, all of my early experiences were with computers^* of one variety or another, not consoles.  Going to the house of a kid who 'only' had a console felt a bit limiting: sure, playing games was cool, but you could only make the machine do what the cartridges dictated.  There was no deviating from that set path and creating something of your own, or getting to know the quirks and foibles of the hardware.

1 hour ago, MrMaddog said:

So what good was a dedicated console like the 2600 even if it did had the unreleased keyboard attachment?

This is where the console-as-a-computer idea has pretty much always fallen flat.  There just aren't that many people looking for a dual-purpose console system in that vein, even today.  Sure, the line blurs a bit when you get into PCs, but it's just never really worked with consoles.

 

^* I count the Odyssey² as being a computer: it may not have had any external storage options, but it was programmable through its (membrane) QWERTY keyboard and shipped with an assembly language cartridge, making the 'computer' part of it something that every purchaser of the system had access to.  Admittedly, 99.7% of what I did with mine was playing games - as most people buying one probably also did - but it did fulfill the marketing slogan of, "The Excitement of a Game... the Mind of a Computer!"

[Keatah]

5 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

I count the Odyssey² as being a computer: it may not have had any external storage options, but it was programmable through its (membrane) QWERTY keyboard and shipped with an assembly language cartridge, making the 'computer' part of it something that every purchaser of the system had access to. 

I dont' recall O2 shipping with an assembly language cartridge??

[+x=usr(1536)]

15 minutes ago, Keatah said:

I dont' recall O2 shipping with an assembly language cartridge??

Yep, it did - it just wasn't titled as such.  In true Magnavox-speak, it was COMPUTER INTRO!  This cartridge was responsible for teaching me about hexadecimal, the basic structure of assembly, and some general computing concepts that I was later able to build on.

 

https://www.the-nextlevel.com/odyssey2/db/game/computer-intro-12

 

TIL: a belief that I had held since the Christmas of 1979 was completely wrong.  Computer Intro (gotta save wear and tear on the '1' key when discussing the O²) was not a bundled cartridge, but rather must have been one that I received with the system.  Thank you, Internet, for ruining my cherished childhood remembrances of early computing experiences

 

Either way, my assertion that it was a computer rather than a dedicated console remains unchanged

[Big Player]

45 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

TIL: a belief that I had held since the Christmas of 1979 was completely wrong.  Computer Intro (gotta save wear and tear on the '1' key when discussing the O²) was not a bundled cartridge, but rather must have been one that I received with the system.  Thank you, Internet, for ruining my cherished childhood remembrances of early computing experiences

So how much programming could you do with it? How long could your programs be? The 2600 Basic Programming cart had tight memory limitations, so I'm guessing nothing long.

 

I took a look at the manual, that is a nice introduction to how computers work and assembly language, especially back when consoles were much cheaper than computers.

 

https://archive.org/details/computer-intro-us-odyssey-2-1979

 

 

 

 

 

[Keatah]

I know my "personal crash" was instigated by there being too much stuff on the market. In 1977 it was cozy and comfortable playing a small pile of cartridges on the 25" Zenith on a windy winter's eve. And my 50 cartridges was quite a generous selection. But by 1982/1983 there were far too many systems and games available.

 

I couldn't afford the time to keep up with it all. And being a completionist made it a billion times worse. This included the early home computers too. By 1984/1985 I was looking at the Amiga and Apple IIgs, Mac and ST. The Amiga won because of price. I could (and did) have a complete rig for under $1400. Already I had my eye and hopes on the Amiga being powerful enough to be an All-in-One machine. Playing past videogames and arcade games. That never happened.

 

PC wasn't on my radar as of yet. That would occur in the later part of the 286 years.

 

And truth be told. I ended up keeping the Apple II as a practical productive working computer. Had I not had a use for it it may not have stayed in the household long enough for nostalgia and sentimentality to take hold. But it did!

 

Auxiliary reading..

https://www.filfre.net/2012/04/this-game-is-over/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983

 

 

Edited November 3, 2022 by Keatah

[Keatah]

In thinking about and narrowing down why I kept the A2 stuff.. I had a bunch of sci-fi short stories and a journal. And I didn't want to lose them. Naturally. By the time I figured out how to transfer the text files to a more modern 486, the sentimentality kicked in and Apple II things were simply not to be gotten rid of. So for a while there it was hanging by a thread. The first stage was expended. This around 1992/1993. The second stage ignited and I bulked-up via cheap ebay purchases. After the second stage burned out, the third stage lit off. Presently activities revolve around getting the occasional manual or new homebrew item. And of course ongoing preservation, imaging, and scanning projects.

 

Almost all the hardware & software I accumulated came along for the ride. At least 90 to 95 percent. It would've seemed weird to have disposed of "some" of the A2 stuff and not all of it. The all or nothing completionist attitude saved the day - the one time it proved beneficial years later. Kept my A2 collection on course. Otherwise screw anything and everything "completionist".

 

There were close calls in the mid-80's. 1986-1988, IIRC. That I purged a lot of junk. I remember encountering A2 material in the hoard. And we just threw it to the "keep pile". By default. TBH a couple of misc support items may have been lost that way, but nothing that couldn't be replaced easily and cheaply today.. if I even remember or have record of what it was. Likely some magazines or cables or an interface card or two. A solid guess.

 

I can tell you there was no way I was keeping all the Atari, Coleco, Mattel, Commodore, RS, GCE, Bally, Magnavox, Sega, and Nintendo stuffage. I was already overloaded way back then. So crash it is!

Edited November 3, 2022 by Keatah

[+GoldLeader]

A quick thought on part of this subject,

 

I've often contended, that the success of the NES in (I'll say) 1987 and beyond came not just in the form of a monopolistic corporation,  though there was that too, but in the form of games.  I believe the reason the NES sold so well was because it gave us the kind of games we'd always dreamed of.  For those who wonder,  "Would video games have come back without the NES?"  I believe they would have if the games were right.  Maybe it would have been the SEGA Master System instead, for instance.

 

Back to the NES;  Sure it gave us better graphics and music,  but also multiple screens,   bigger worlds, and just altogether deeper experiences.  And although I love the Pick up and Play nature of Atari games,  and have even found some deeper games therein (Pitfall! and Adventure spring to mind),...In the older days we'd always dreamed of games that just kept going and going...

[Keatah]

Sooner or later a company would have fine-tuned that formula, bigger and better worlds. After all, the first home computers were already going in that direction. Many A2 action games had multiple segments. Some tied together, some not.

 

An early example of a big world, was trying to discover what was off-road in Intellivision's AutoRacing. Or having our SeaBattles take place in certain parts of the map. Or simply Atari's Adventure. Ultima, Wolfenstein, and more..

 

Technology was progressing, memory capacity and CPU power increasing. Only natural a game world expanded with it.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Keatah

[+x=usr(1536)]

7 hours ago, Big Player said:

So how much programming could you do with it? How long could your programs be?

99 lines of instructions with an 11-character single-line output.  Pretty rudimentary, but so was the O²

7 hours ago, Big Player said:

The 2600 Basic Programming cart had tight memory limitations, so I'm guessing nothing long.

Yep.  In all honesty, 2600 BASIC actually offered more flexibility than Computer Intro did - but Computer Intro wasn't totally out-of-line with the sorts of things that budget DIY computer kits of the time were capable of.  It was certainly not general-purpose, however.

[ColecoGamer]

I learned about the crash on the nightly news. Deep down I knew it wasn’t gone forever, though.

[Keatah]

Nintendo was closely following "the crash". And when they entered the market for a home gaming console they tried to not make it look like a traditional console or other piece of consumer electronics. They didn't advertise with words like "software/hardware" or "videogames". They firmly wanted to distance themselves from the sickness that invaded the US market. And anything that came before NES was considered inferior 8-bit fodder.

 

I did like how Nintendo implemented the security chip and all the control they exercised over who could publish. Good to see them charging a 30% licensing fee, demanding up-front payment before making a run of carts, and enforcing a no-refund/return policy against developers if the game didn't sell well. All this created a higher barrier for entry. And that helped ensure only quality titles were made.

 

None of it was perfect, but it kept the riffraff out of the market for a while. It allowed the big N to get established in the US. Say what you will about N but they did things opposite of Tramiel (I believe) and put a product out there with pride and quality. No beat-off basement buddies binging on the bargain bin.

 

I know my personal so-called collecting history would have been quite different had I known about all the racing to the bottom Tramiel conducted. In some retrospecting it seems like the whole thing blew up after the initial excitement of the new artform simmered down. Once it became a game of numbers rather than creativity.

[MrMaddog]

23 hours ago, Keatah said:

Nintendo was closely following "the crash". And when they entered the market for a home gaming console they tried to not make it look like a traditional console or other piece of consumer electronics. They didn't advertise with words like "software/hardware" or "videogames". They firmly wanted to distance themselves from the sickness that invaded the US market. And anything that came before NES was considered inferior 8-bit fodder.

 

I did like how Nintendo implemented the security chip and all the control they exercised over who could publish. Good to see them charging a 30% licensing fee, demanding up-front payment before making a run of carts, and enforcing a no-refund/return policy against developers if the game didn't sell well. All this created a higher barrier for entry. And that helped ensure only quality titles were made.

 

 

I don't mind Big N doing quality control for the NES, but my main beef was they didn't allow retailers to sell competing systems from Sega and Atari.  Growing up through the early 80's I knew there was room for at least three competing systems but Nintendo wouldn't let stores (save for big chain toy stores) sell them.  Yes I know Sega & Atari didn't do much to market their systems during the late 80's but Nintendo would still be number one based on the quality of their games so they didn't need to be like Micro$oft was...

 

Quote

None of it was perfect, but it kept the riffraff out of the market for a while. It allowed the big N to get established in the US. Say what you will about N but they did things opposite of Tramiel (I believe) and put a product out there with pride and quality. No beat-off basement buddies binging on the bargain bin.

 

I know my personal so-called collecting history would have been quite different had I known about all the racing to the bottom Tramiel conducted. In some retrospecting it seems like the whole thing blew up after the initial excitement of the new artform simmered down. Once it became a game of numbers rather than creativity.

 

TBH, during the late 80's I saw Atari more as a home computer company than a video game one.  I was more interested in the ST & XE computers than the 2600 & 7800 consoles, except maybe for some 7800 games not available on the XEGS.  So I did all my modern console gaming on a NES while using the 130XE for the "computer" stuff along with some "classic" game carts & stuff from Antic cover disks.

 

Atari Games, the coin-op division that split off from Tramiel's company, had some real good games ported from the arcade to the NES under the Tengen label.  But of course all their legal shenanigans was their undoing...

 

[Keatah]

17 minutes ago, MrMaddog said:

Growing up through the early 80's I knew there was room for at least three competing systems but Nintendo wouldn't let stores (save for big chain toy stores) sell them.

No company should dictate what other products a store sells. Unless it's the company's own shop of course. Yes.

 

17 minutes ago, MrMaddog said:

TBH, during the late 80's I saw Atari more as a home computer company than a video game one.

I still saw them as a game company. Simply because of the name. I was rather oblivious to corporate politics and divisions and all that. Atari = games!

 

17 minutes ago, MrMaddog said:

Atari Games, the coin-op division that split off from Tramiel's company, had some real good games ported from the arcade to the NES under the Tengen label.  But of course all their legal shenanigans was their undoing...

I always wondered why the 8-bit hardware didn't see any further developments beyond the base architecture of the 400/800. Pretty sure (TIL) that the original engineers that designed it were gone from the company before the computers gained any popularity - thus leaving behind a legacy of sorts. Whoever came on-board to do the XL/XE series did little more than make patches and styling changes. The core remained the same. Stagnation. Sound right?

 

With Apple II we eventually got the II+, //e, //c, enhanced //e, and //e PLatinum. First a redesigned-for-efficiency PCB. And then added features like lowercase, 64K/80col, 128K, enhanced firmware, DHGR, ProDOS, upgraded keyboard w/numeric pad, and more storage/peripheral options. Carefully considered things customers wanted that proved very useful and practical. But the styling essentially remained the same from 1977 through 1993 when it was discontinued.

Edited November 4, 2022 by Keatah

[MrMaddog]

20 hours ago, Keatah said:

I still saw them as a game company. Simply because of the name. I was rather oblivious to corporate politics and divisions and all that. Atari = games!

 

I always wondered why the 8-bit hardware didn't see any further developments beyond the base architecture of the 400/800. Pretty sure (TIL) that the original engineers that designed it were gone from the company before the computers gained any popularity - thus leaving behind a legacy of sorts. Whoever came on-board to do the XL/XE series did little more than make patches and styling changes. The core remained the same. Stagnation. Sound right?

 

With Apple II we eventually got the II+, //e, //c, enhanced //e, and //e PLatinum. First a redesigned-for-efficiency PCB. And then added features like lowercase, 64K/80col, 128K, enhanced firmware, DHGR, ProDOS, upgraded keyboard w/numeric pad, and more storage/peripheral options. Carefully considered things customers wanted that proved very useful and practical. But the styling essentially remained the same from 1977 through 1993 when it was discontinued.

 

Everyone saw Atari as only a game company, that's why no one took any of their computers seriously.

 

And to be fair, the XL was a different design from the 400/800 in that it was a more compact board, expansion port and better memory accessing which includes shadow RAM (Hi C-64!)

 

The 1200/1400XL's had even more advanced features but they just didn't work out well.  The compatibility with the older 800's was great as long as programmers used "official" calls, otherwise users need The Translator disk that loads in the 800's OS.

 

The XE's though only added bank switchable memory and that's it...  Forget about things like portable screens & music chips because Jack sure did!

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

22 hours ago, Keatah said:

I always wondered why the 8-bit hardware didn't see any further developments beyond the base architecture of the 400/800. Pretty sure (TIL) that the original engineers that designed it were gone from the company before the computers gained any popularity - thus leaving behind a legacy of sorts. Whoever came on-board to do the XL/XE series did little more than make patches and styling changes. The core remained the same.

Here's my pet theory regarding that: the 1200XL did it, and I say that as someone who thinks that they were the niftiest machines in the A8 range.

 

Overpriced and with compatibility issues affecting some older software, the C64 had already had three or four months in the marketplace at a lower price point by the time the 1200XL was released and bombed.  My suspicion is that this panicked Warner, who desperately needed to get the 600XL and 800XL out the door in order to salvage some semblance of competition in an increasingly cutthroat retail environment.

 

This led to no real development of either of those machines beyond what was needed to get them onto retail shelves: if they could salvage some of Atari's sales, then maybe by next year this whole Crash thing will be over and they could start shopping the company around to someone else.  Who cares what they do with the hardware after they buy it; that's a them problem.

 

Keep the background R&D and development projects going (for the most part) to make the company appear more attractive to potential buyers.  It shows commitment to the platform, even if very little of it really improves the product line, or even shows a sense of direction.  No need for long-term planning because, well, there are no long-term plans beyond GTFO.

 

Fundamentally, it's a case of bad timing - but it's also impossible to ignore the 1200XL's shortcomings, and how that likely affected Warner's judgement regarding the A8 line.

[NorbertP]

Here in the UK the crash had pretty much the opposite effect and increased Atari's sales. Our economy was a bit of a mess in the late 70s and early 80s and the VCS and its games were pretty expensive so for the most part it was something only the wealthy could afford, and combined with the very strong low-cost home computer market it was very rare to see one in the wild: you could almost buy an entire computer for less than the cost of a single VCS game so it was a tough sell. Some time in late 83/early 84, though, the prices plummeted - presumably Atari was trying to dump stock just to get some cashflow going - so it became a more viable option and they became far more common. My grandparents picked one up in 84 with a handful of games, something that would have been inconceivable a year earlier, but because very few people had been exposed to them previously even the ancient games were "new". We had no idea it was a "crash" and it wasn't really until the rise of YouTube that I became aware of it, and it irks me that it gets called "the videogame crash of 1983": outside the US it was a big fat nothing, and even then the games market was pretty healthy thanks to the C64, Apple II, A8, TRS-80, etc. "A series of poor business decisions by a single division of Atari" is a much better name for it...

 

(We also experienced the opposite of the US's NES revolution; again the high prices couldn't compete against a home computer and Nintendo made some really odd marketing choices into the bargain, the result being that I didn't know anybody who owned one at the time. Until the SNES Nintendo were better known for the Game & Watch than anything else!)

[+x=usr(1536)]

3 hours ago, NorbertP said:

Here in the UK the crash had pretty much the opposite effect and increased Atari's sales.

To be fair, that happened with nearly anyone and everyone making microcomputers.  1983 to around 1985-ish saw a ton of companies crop up in that market, but not many survived past about 1987 or so.  More:

3 hours ago, NorbertP said:

Our economy was a bit of a mess in the late 70s and early 80s and the VCS and its games were pretty expensive so for the most part it was something only the wealthy could afford, and combined with the very strong low-cost home computer market it was very rare to see one in the wild: you could almost buy an entire computer for less than the cost of a single VCS game so it was a tough sell.

Not to mention that people in the US generally had more discretionary income than people in the UK (or on the Continent, for that matter).

3 hours ago, NorbertP said:

Some time in late 83/early 84, though, the prices plummeted - presumably Atari was trying to dump stock just to get some cashflow going - so it became a more viable option and they became far more common.

Atari UK had a change of management around that time, IIRC.  The new management had a better grasp on the local market conditions, and understood that in order to remain in the market they had to compete with the C64, not the Apple ][ line as Atari was in the US.  Given that Apple at the time was more or less irrelevant in Europe as a whole, this put more emphasis on dropping prices - and the XL range did that very well.

 

It was never enough to really get much of a serious foothold in the marketplace, but it did help.

3 hours ago, NorbertP said:

My grandparents picked one up in 84 with a handful of games, something that would have been inconceivable a year earlier, but because very few people had been exposed to them previously even the ancient games were "new". We had no idea it was a "crash" and it wasn't really until the rise of YouTube that I became aware of it, and it irks me that it gets called "the videogame crash of 1983": outside the US it was a big fat nothing, and even then the games market was pretty healthy thanks to the C64, Apple II, A8, TRS-80, etc. "A series of poor business decisions by a single division of Atari" is a much better name for it...

Growing up in a mix of Ireland, the UK, and the US, I got to see the Crash from a few different perspectives, and you're right - outside of North America, it was a non-event. 

3 hours ago, NorbertP said:

(We also experienced the opposite of the US's NES revolution; again the high prices couldn't compete against a home computer and Nintendo made some really odd marketing choices into the bargain, the result being that I didn't know anybody who owned one at the time. Until the SNES Nintendo were better known for the Game & Watch than anything else!)

I had one.  It was given to me by family in the UK, which was very kind of them.  Unfortunately, Nintendo had decided that they were going to stay out of the Irish market, which left me with a console for which I couldn't get games.  By the time Nintendo had decided to sell them in Ireland, the SNES was about a year or so away, and I was deep into the ST by then so really didn't care anyway.

 

Having said that, the SNES and the Sega Mega Drive are about where I place the earliest roots of consoles really getting a foothold.  It didn't seem to solidify until the 16-bit era was over and the PS1 stepped in along with PCs, but before then it was certainly a smaller share of the market than anything to do with micros.

[MrTrust]

On 11/4/2022 at 6:20 PM, MrMaddog said:

Growing up through the early 80's I knew there was room for at least three competing systems...

 

How did you know this?  I don't think that was true then, and I'm not even sure it's true now.

 

Between '77 and '85, you have, what, at least 7 consoles come out.  The 2600 is the runaway leader, Intellivsion and Colecovision are distant also-rans, and everything else tanks.  Between '86 and '90, something like 5.  The NES is the NES, the Genesis finally establishes a two-horse race, and everything else tanks.  Between '90 and '94, there are another 5 on the market, and many more if you want to count all the different CD add-on systems.  Other than the SNES and the continued life of the Genesis, it's just a graveyard during those years.  So, all along it's looking like the market can barely sustain two successful consoles.  '95 there's a shakeout, and basically the only the only things going are Saturn, Playstation, and N64.  Saturn basically explodes on the launchpad, and N64 is a distant runner-up.  If it weren't for Game Boy and Nintendo's name, that console could very well have knocked them out of the market.

 

Turn of the century happens, and within a two-year span, there are 4 consoles on the market.  Sega ends up down for the count with Dreamcast.  They're done for good.  Nothing else manages to sell even 1/5 of the PS2's 150 million units.  Microsoft lost 4 billion on the original Xbox; if that had been any other company, that would have been it for them in the video game hardware market.  The Gamecube was profitable despite it's piddling 13% market share, but Nintendo was essentially done after that.  They've stuck around, but the Wii was never in direct competition with Sony or Microsoft's machines.  Maybe you could say the Wii U was, but, well, look what happened with that.  The Switch does, kinda' sorta', do a little bit of the kind of thing the big heavy consoles do.  The newer Doom games, the cloud version of RE3... there's a little bit of overlap in what they do, but if you're the kind of guy who is a current, mainstream gamer-type gamer, you are not buying the Switch as your primary games console.  The software you buy for that is not going to cut into what you spend on the bigger machines.  It's competition only in the most superficial sense, Nintendo have been a sideshow for the last two generations, and they're likely not going back any time soon.

 

For there to be three truly competing systems, it would require an Apple or an LG to get into the market in a serious, determined way like Microsoft did.  You're going to have to be prepared to lose billions until eventually you have enough name recognition to stick around, and even then, can the market sustain 3 consoles with PC stuff getting cheaper and more accessible every year?  I would think the reason that you haven't seen an Apple or LG try to jump in suggests that it can't.  That's what you'd need to have an analogous situation to the one in '86.  

 

For me, this thinking sums up the story of the crash.  People felt like the market was bigger than it actually was, there were way too many products chasing too few customers, and the chickens eventually came home to roost.  The same thing appeared to happen in the 90s with similar results, and then again at the turn of the century.  The market is huge now, because people don't stop playing them when they become adults like they used to do, but it's still a small number of people spending most of the money.  They may buy 3 consoles if one of them is substantially cheaper than the other two, or can function as a portable machine.  Would they buy three $700 machines that are largely redundant with each other save a dwindling number of exclusive games?  Maybe, but I think that's far from a safe bet.

[MrMaddog]

Quote

How did you know this?  I don't think that was true then, and I'm not even sure it's true now.

 

How many consoles were there before the Crash? 

 

And what has been the most amount of successful consoles for each generation since the Crash?

 

I was talking about systems that had "advertising" ie. TV commercials, mainly Atari, Intellivision & ColecoVision

 

Just because Wikipedia has an entry for the Arcadia 2001 didn't mean people back then actually bought one...

[zzip]

On 11/7/2022 at 5:47 PM, MrTrust said:

For me, this thinking sums up the story of the crash.  People felt like the market was bigger than it actually was, there were way too many products chasing too few customers, and the chickens eventually came home to roost.  The same thing appeared to happen in the 90s with similar results, and then again at the turn of the century.  The market is huge now, because people don't stop playing them when they become adults like they used to do, but it's still a small number of people spending most of the money.  They may buy 3 consoles if one of them is substantially cheaper than the other two, or can function as a portable machine.  Would they buy three $700 machines that are largely redundant with each other save a dwindling number of exclusive games?  Maybe, but I think that's far from a safe bet.

They knew how big the market was, problem was like every other bubble, projections were that the astronomical growth would continue and everyone geared up accordingly, and instead the market unexpectedly shrunk wrecking everyone's business plans

 

15 hours ago, MrMaddog said:

How many consoles were there before the Crash? 

 

And what has been the most amount of successful consoles for each generation since the Crash?

 

I was talking about systems that had "advertising" ie. TV commercials, mainly Atari, Intellivision & ColecoVision

 

Just because Wikipedia has an entry for the Arcadia 2001 didn't mean people back then actually bought one...

Most retailers stocked Atari/Mattel/Colecovision.     It was harder to find systems like Arcadia/Astrocade/Odyssey II/Vectrex.   That's how the market usually deals with an oversupply of vendors.  Retail only wants to carry the most successful and the rest will be left to struggle until they give up.  So oversupply would typically hurt the weakest vendors the most, not bring down the entire market.

[+x=usr(1536)]

45 minutes ago, zzip said:

Most retailers stocked Atari/Mattel/Colecovision.     It was harder to find systems like Arcadia/Astrocade/Odyssey II/Vectrex.

I would say that this was true for smaller retailers (including those in regional chains), but larger chains generally carried a wider variety of systems and games.  Our local Toys 'R' Us had the Atari / Mattel / Coleco triumvirate, but also carried O² and Vectrex stuff until about late 1984 or so, and I remember buying cartridges for both on clearance with combined birthday & Christmas money.

 

To be fair, I can only remember ever seeing the Astrocade, Channel F, etc. in independent retailers, and even then not terribly often.  The 2600, Intellivision, O², and later the ColecoVision had pretty well knocked them out of the market for the most part, IIRC.

[zzip]

11 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

I would say that this was true for smaller retailers (including those in regional chains), but larger chains generally carried a wider variety of systems and games.  Our local Toys 'R' Us had the Atari / Mattel / Coleco triumvirate, but also carried O² and Vectrex stuff until about late 1984 or so, and I remember buying cartridges for both on clearance with combined birthday & Christmas money..

 

To be fair, I can only remember ever seeing the Astrocade, Channel F, etc. in independent retailers, and even then not terribly often.  The 2600, Intellivision, O², and later the ColecoVision had pretty well knocked them out of the market for the most part, IIRC.

Yeah Toys R Us kept a wide selection well into the crash.     But places like K-Mart, JC Penney,  Service Merchandise -   It was rare to see the less popular systems in those places.  

 

Channel F I understand died pretty early.   I never saw one in a store.   I would never have known it even existed if my friend hadn't got one from a yard sale, and we played with it for awhile.

[Mockduck]

In hindsight I learned about the crash when I went into a mall sometime around 1984 in southern Minnesota and saw bins of 2600 games for (my memory thinks) $5 each. At the time I was excited, but didn't have any money. 

[Keatah]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Channel F I understand died pretty early.   I never saw one in a store.   I would never have known it even existed if my friend hadn't got one from a yard sale, and we played with it for awhile.

I clearly remember seeing a Channel F in IIRC a Wollworth's or Montgomery Wards, mid-70's. 76? 77? I didn't know what I was looking at. I was too young. And it was a blur. I did not notice "cartridges". I might have thought them be tapes.

 

Then of course the VCS hit the market in fall of '77. I was instantly enamored with its sophistication and mystery. And familial warmth projected by the box art. I discovered what cartridges were. There seemed to be all sorts of intrigue surrounding what was inside them and the console. Always wondered what came next. What a difference a year made!

 

When "the crash" came later it crept up like an ebb and flow. It wasn't sudden. Don't recall any newspaper headlines or anything. Certainly nothing saying videogaming was over and done with. More akin to a change in guiding forces telling me where to go next was more like it. The grandparents were getting me less cartridges despite them being at record low prices. $1.00, $2.00, $5.00.. A few times I got a whole bag of them and they sat on the living room floor because I simply didn't get around to playing them. Too many! And when I did, I found myself asking what the deeper meaning (of the game) was. Where where the cool levels or action spots? But they were shallow and more of the same'ol same'ol.

 

But they ended up in my burgeoning library nonetheless. Library? Really? Naw. Just a 10x10 section of wall covered in cassette and cartridge holders. I must have had around 1,000 titles there, including 8-bit diskette-based software for Atari 800. My Apple II stuff would be stored and counted separately because it was a real computer and not a toy videogame.

 

In the Apple II¹ world there was, shall we say, a certain atmosphere, a certain aura, surrounding the platform. Every platform has it. Point being is that there was no change here because of the crash. The system was just as cool before and after "the crash" equally. The same level of software (or more) was being produced in '83 & '84 as the year earlier or the year later. The progression of the trend line would not have indicated anything was wrong. In fact II+ users were starting to eye the //e.

 

I was utterly relieved to see the vast array of software I accumulated for the II+ would also work on the //e. I clearly remember grilling the sales guys repeatedly on this. One of the few times I respected the profession. They told me exactly how it would go down. Everything would work minus a few disks due to copy-protection. I dismissed that because WaReZ had me covered. But I didn't dare tell them that! Ha!

 

There was short while I was without an Apple II. I blew up my II+ console and tried fixing it with a 200W Weller soldering gun, along with other ministrations. I failed badly and set the whole mess aside for future repairs. Hence my grilling of the salesmen about compatibility. Didn't want to not have access to all the II+ material..!

 

But when I got the //e I was pleased that I gained 128K/80columns, a lower-heat design, more symbols on the keyboard, lowercase, and some firmware enhancements.

 

It was a lesson I wished I took to heart sooner - trusting the manufacturer of the product to make the right engineering decisions. Directly seeing how the //e was the II+ and more. I would eventually go on to PC in the 90's and 00's and get all wrapped up in overclocking and modding and chasing MaxPC Dream Machines. Thankfully I escaped that cult.

 

Blah blah blah!

 

1- Atari or any other fav micro could be used in this example.