It’s a miracle the nes sold like hot cakes

[+Defender_2600]

Features:

-3 voices
-16-bit frequency resolution
-28kHz sample rate with dynamic range of 10 bits
-2 arbitrary 64-byte waveforms stored in on-chip ROM, which could differ per-game
-3 standard waveforms: triangle, square, sawtooth

 

The Minnie and TIA audio was summed together, which added another 2 voices to the system, suitable for sound effects and percussion effects.

 

As stated in the Minnie Subsystem Top-Level Specification document created Dec 1983 and updated Feb 1984, the cost target would have added less than $2 per cart.

[homerhomer]

It was a miracle that the NES sold like hotcakes. But I'm going to blame Nintendo.  Sorry to kick a dead horse.

 

Around 1985-86, I can remember playing VS. RBI baseball, Vs. Tennis, Duck Hunt and Hogan's Alley. All these games were fun but not cutting edge. Nintendo didn't have a big arcade presence. Atari Games did have a presence at the time and were still making great games. Marble Madness, Gauntlet, Paperboy and Super Sprint were all big hits.  I understand that Atari split into two companies but, somebody should have tried to get these games on the "New" 7800 console.  I would go as far as saying that games like Gauntlet, Super Sprint and Paperboy would of had a bigger audience than Contra, Super Mario and Metroid in 1986.

 

Back in the day I got a NES, but I might have went with Atari if they ported there more modern games on the 7800.   Ha ha, I later on bought a Lynx for that reason. 

Edited August 17, 2022 by homerhomer

[johannesmutlu]

3 hours ago, homerhomer said:

It was a miracle that the NES sold like hotcakes. But I'm going to blame Nintendo.  Sorry to kick a dead horse.

 

Around 1985-86, I can remember playing VS. RBI baseball, Vs. Tennis, Duck Hunt and Hogan's Alley. All these games were fun but not cutting edge. Nintendo didn't have a big arcade presence. Atari Games did have a presence at the time and were still making great games. Marble Madness, Gauntlet, Paperboy and Super Sprint were all big hits.  I understand that Atari split into two companies but, somebody should have tried to get these games on the "New" 7800 console.  I would go as far as saying that games like Gauntlet, Super Sprint and Paperboy would of had a bigger audience than Contra, Super Mario and Metroid in 1986.

 

Back in the day I got a NES, but I might have went with Atari if they ported there more modern games on the 7800.   Ha ha, I later on bought a Lynx for that reason. 

Atari should,ve kept their atari 5200 as well and just leave the outdated atari 2600 altogether instead,because the 5200 was more powerful and could,ve compeated well with the 3th generation of systems or it could,ve be used as a fall back into if the atari 7800 didn’t sold well because whether the specs of a system,it’s eventually all about the games and only good games can sell a console and limitations leads to creations to get around these limitations🙏🙏😁

and that’s all that matters ,

now while i do know why nintendo did won the 3the generation 8bit war,BUT if you take into consideration that both atari,nintendo and sega did came up with their own sports games such as tennis,formule 1 among others, it’s sometimes hard to believe that nintendo did won the last 8bit wars

[Jaden (JRH)]

I think Atari would have had a better chance if they just didn't do the 5200 altogether. While the 7800's games may not have been cutting edge even when they were released, they at least got some cool original games later on. Atari 5200 had pretty much nothing original on it, except for maybe Countermeasure and Meteorites (which is just an Asteroids clone anyway). The best bet for Atari would have probably been to skip the 5200 and release the 7800 when they initially intended. But even still, they needed a killer game line up to stand up to the upcoming competition. Whatever could have happened, history has already played out and I think it was for the better. 

[roots.genoa]

8 hours ago, johannesmutlu said:

now while i do know why nintendo did won the 3the generation 8bit war,BUT if you take into consideration that both atari,nintendo and sega did came up with their own sports games such as tennis,formule 1 among others, it’s sometimes hard to believe that nintendo did won the last 8bit wars

I have not the slightest idea of what you mean here. 🤔

[DavidD]

15 hours ago, homerhomer said:

Marble Madness, Gauntlet, Paperboy and Super Sprint were all big hits.  I understand that Atari split into two companies but, somebody should have tried to get these games on the "New" 7800 console.  I would go as far as saying that games like Gauntlet, Super Sprint and Paperboy would of had a bigger audience than Contra, Super Mario and Metroid in 1986.

I know they appeared a few years later, but all three titles DID appear on the NES... and, as far as I know, were outsold by Contra, Metroid, and (especially) the Super Mario Bros. games...

[Lynxpro]

On 8/8/2022 at 9:32 AM, zzip said:

I know the history of these things,  I'm talking from the perspective of Atari Corp though.   They came in interested in selling STs,  looking at the warehouses full of old stuff as things they can sell cheap to help fund the ST line which they saw as the central focus of the company going forward.

 

From their perspective,  consoles were dead.   They wanted to dump them on the market cheap for cash.    They couldn't sell the 7800 because of payment disputes with GCC.   In the meantime, sales of the 2600 were surprisingly strong in 1985 even though they didn't do any marketing for it.  Obviously the 2600jr was a Warner design, you can tell from the styling.   However when Atari Corp introduced it in 1986, it left everyone scratching their head.   The conventional wisdom was the 2600 was long dead and buried.   The story I heard from Atari execs at the Atari Fairs they held in the late 80s was that 2600 sales were strong in the 3rd world and that's why they decided to release the 2600jr.  People in North America were looking for something newer.,

 

 

 

Why are you perpetuating this garbage that was debunked a decade ago? Jack and company were interested in selling consoles and video games immediately. They didn't view the industry as being dead. Jack immediately wanted to sell the 7800 at Christmas 1984 as originally planned by Warner and Atari Inc. Except at a much lower price which GCC wouldn't agree to. As for the 2600jr, it sold well in NORTH AMERICA at the low end. Warner's Atari Inc had planned to release it prior to Tramiel's involvement. It wasn't due to South America and the 3rd world.

[Lynxpro]

22 hours ago, homerhomer said:

It was a miracle that the NES sold like hotcakes. But I'm going to blame Nintendo.  Sorry to kick a dead horse.

 

Around 1985-86, I can remember playing VS. RBI baseball, Vs. Tennis, Duck Hunt and Hogan's Alley. All these games were fun but not cutting edge. Nintendo didn't have a big arcade presence. Atari Games did have a presence at the time and were still making great games. Marble Madness, Gauntlet, Paperboy and Super Sprint were all big hits.  I understand that Atari split into two companies but, somebody should have tried to get these games on the "New" 7800 console.  I would go as far as saying that games like Gauntlet, Super Sprint and Paperboy would of had a bigger audience than Contra, Super Mario and Metroid in 1986.

 

Back in the day I got a NES, but I might have went with Atari if they ported there more modern games on the 7800.   Ha ha, I later on bought a Lynx for that reason. 

 

Tramiel's Atari Corp and Atari Games Corp were involved in a lawsuit at the time to determine which company owned what IP due to the sloppy separation that Warner caused when splitting up the assets for sale. That's why Atari Games' titles did not appear on Atari Corp consoles until both companies sued Nintendo for monopolizing the industry and [Time] Warner CEO Steve Ross behind the scenes was strongly encouraging both Ataris to work together more instead of against each other.

 

It also didn't help matters that Atari Games - with the backing of their now 90% owner Namco - was entering the home market under their Tengen brand as a 3rd Party developer for the NES. Had the 7800 been released at Christmas 1984 and strongly backed shortly thereafter with Atari Games' smash arcade titles, the NES would not have been as much of a success. Gauntlet and Paperboy alone would've sold tons of 7800s in 1985/86 had they been available exclusively for it, not to mention the various Namco titles Atari Games popularized outside of Japan like RBI Baseball. Hell, Pac-Land in early 1985 would've been a huge boon.

[zzip]

8 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

Jack immediately wanted to sell the 7800 at Christmas 1984 as originally planned by Warner and Atari Inc. Except at a much lower price which GCC wouldn't agree to.

I know that, that's why I said they wanted to sell the console inventory cheap for the cash.   They could have done it right, kept the original MSRP,  GCC gets paid, and immediately start developing and procuring 3rd parties to develop for the console.   But that wasn't Jack's way of doing things.   Instead he finally gets to release it two years later with the same 1984 launch titles (many of which were already dated by 1984 standards, let alone 86).   This was not a serious effort at running a console platform and it's no wonder Nintendo and Sega ate their lunch.   

[DavidD]

17 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

It also didn't help matters that Atari Games - with the backing of their now 90% owner Namco - was entering the home market under their Tengen brand as a 3rd Party developer for the NES. Had the 7800 been released at Christmas 1984 and strongly backed shortly thereafter with Atari Games' smash arcade titles, the NES would not have been as much of a success. Gauntlet and Paperboy alone would've sold tons of 7800s in 1985/86 had they been available exclusively for it, not to mention the various Namco titles Atari Games popularized outside of Japan like RBI Baseball. Hell, Pac-Land in early 1985 would've been a huge boon.

Eeeehhhhh... this seems like wishful thinking.  We're assuming:

 

1) People would have purchased "another" Atari game system, ignoring the downward trend for consoles and upward trend for computers.

2) Stores would have carried more Atari hardware and pushed it significantly, given point 1.

3) A one year head start would have significantly impacted the NES.

4) Gauntlet and Paperboy would be more popular that Super Mario Bros. a year later.

5) 7800 games available in 1984-1986 would someone manage to pass the "look/feel/sound" test compared to the NES.  Casual consumers generally ranked NES games as being much better than those on the 7800.

[Leonard Smith]

Truth be told, the NES ports of most Atari games by Tengen were GOD AWFUL.

 

Gauntlet animates like a slide show.
Paperboy is garbage

 

[DavidD]

4 hours ago, Leonard Smith said:

Truth be told, the NES ports of most Atari games by Tengen were GOD AWFUL.

 

Gauntlet animates like a slide show.
Paperboy is garbage

 

I never played the NES Gauntlet -- I was always curious about the changes they made.

 

Gauntlet II on the NES was good, but that wasn't Tengen...

[roots.genoa]

6 hours ago, Leonard Smith said:

Paperboy is garbage

I was under the impression most Paperboy's ports were garbage anyway. Back in the days, this, Home Alone, George Foreman's KO Boxing, and a few others were the usual suspects for quick reviews with a terrible ranking. So for a long time I thought the original game was dud.

[zzip]

15 hours ago, DavidD said:

1) People would have purchased "another" Atari game system, ignoring the downward trend for consoles and upward trend for computers.

2) Stores would have carried more Atari hardware and pushed it significantly, given point 1.

This  was the era when retail was not in the mood to carry consoles and console games, given all the markdowns they had recently taken.   So Atari's decision to introduce a brand new console in 84 and kill the 5200 always seemed kind of strange because a lot of stores would have resisted carrying it.   

 

And then yeah how many would have consumers bought?  Consumer Interest in videogames had dropped significantly by this point.  The 7800 1984 games lineup didn't have anything new to excite people, it was just  enhanced versions of games that had been around for a few years already-- Joust, Asteroids, Dig Dug, etc.  At this point, people still interested in games were moving to computers with the more sophisticated games that allowed.  

15 hours ago, DavidD said:

3) A one year head start would have significantly impacted the NES.

Not with the Tramiels at the helm, that's for sure!    I think Warner would have given Nintendo a much harder time because they had way more marketing muscle.   But unless Warner changed their game strategy, Nintendo still wins.

 

15 hours ago, DavidD said:

4) Gauntlet and Paperboy would be more popular that Super Mario Bros. a year later.

Atari was stuck in the 'arcade paradigm' that dominated from 1980 until maybe 84.   Basically the idea was consumers want the console with ports of the most popular arcade games.   A games is 3 lives and you're dead (though to be fair, Gauntlet didn't follow this), and "winning" was defined as lasting the longest and getting the high score.   Some arcade games may have had end stages, but most players weren't good enough to reach them--   but the "continue" concept was becoming more common.   Games that weren't arcade ports more often than not followed this same paradigm

 

Nintendo got rid of this concept.   Even though SMB had the trappings of an arcade game with limited lives.  It was so easy to earn extra lives that this became meaningless.  Even if you used up your lives you could continue.  So SMB was more like some kind of adventure where the goal is to reach the end levels  rather than just get the high score with the game lasting 10 min or less.

[+GoldLeader]

Consoles 'Win" based on games...NES had the games people wanted.  Even when you say the converse of that,  Atari would have won, if they had the games you are saying the same thing.  Europe being in the middle of a Computer Renaissance may include other reasons (i.e. learning to program, etc.), but also includes a large influx of games...On cassettes, discs, etc.  and many of them cheap or copyable... 

[johannesmutlu]

The sega mark 3 should,ve be the famicom instead and vice versa,and you wanny know why? well if nintendo really wanted to be sure that their arcade games will be acurate & ported 1.2.3 to their system,then they should,ve go for the Z80 chip inside their system,like their arcade systems,wich do didn’t do that,that’s bullshit,

considering all their arcade had to be recompiled into 6502 computer languange,not only that but all their famicom versions were still far from arcade perfect wich they could,ve done or futher on trying wich they didn’t heck even those later coleco addam and commodore 64 versions of those arcade games were better,just insane,

Also the sega mark 3 is Z80 based unlike the famicom but it is also more powerful and it is compatible with SG1000 games,it also has RGB out and detachable controllers,something the famicom shamefully doesn’t have,and with that in mind i can hardly imagine that the famicom,nes not only revitalized the videogame’s industry in the us but that it also beated sega to the punch,

 

HOWEVER. I do criticise sega for turning that beautyful friendly white looking MARK 3 into an ugly black pyramid stretching mastersystem for the western market as well as for also coming up with that cheapass stripped down mastersystem 2,wich they shouldn’t had do,

what sega should done was kept it’s original name and design of the mark 3 for the western market as well and avoid that stupid mastersystem 2 altogether,because i bet that if sega had done that instead,it would,ve sold much much better,

thing is both the sega SG1000,SG2000 and the mark 3 just look more open and friendly with it’s cool looking white colored design,wich will turn me into a sega fan as well,

in other words we absolutely should no longer think about the color black when we think about sega (like i alway’s did) because their early awesome looking game consoles and it’s last game console, were all white😁

Edited August 23, 2022 by johannesmutlu

[Cyprian]

On 8/12/2022 at 11:30 PM, Defender_2600 said:

Features:

-3 voices
-16-bit frequency resolution
-28kHz sample rate with dynamic range of 10 bits
-2 arbitrary 64-byte waveforms stored in on-chip ROM, which could differ per-game
-3 standard waveforms: triangle, square, sawtooth

 

The Minnie and TIA audio was summed together, which added another 2 voices to the system, suitable for sound effects and percussion effects.

 

As stated in the Minnie Subsystem Top-Level Specification document created Dec 1983 and updated Feb 1984, the cost target would have added less than $2 per cart.

I wonder how they calculated the frequency:

 

28000Hz * (freq. const. / 65536) = output frequency

and for frequency constant = 0001H they get 2,34Hz  oscillator frequency

 

My calculation gives different result: 28 000,00  * ( 1 /   65535) =  0,427252613

 

 

 

[+Defender_2600]

2 hours ago, Cyprian said:

I wonder how they calculated the frequency:

 

28000Hz * (freq. const. / 65536) = output frequency

and for frequency constant = 0001H they get 2,34Hz  oscillator frequency

 

My calculation gives different result: 28 000,00  * ( 1 /   65535) =  0,427252613

 

 

 

 

Redirect

 

[christo930]

On 4/23/2022 at 11:12 AM, johannesmutlu said:

It’s a miracle that the nes sold like hot cakes because,

 

1, the nes was not the first game console to be sold as an “entertainment system” because the video entertainment system(later recalled the fairchannel f) and the atari 5200 were also sold as an  advanced Video entertainment system,

2,nintendo games were also on other systems,

3,the nes was not that more powerful and not in everyway from other systems.

4,also from a price point both systems don’t differ that much,

5,while rob the robot somehow triggered consumers to wamna buy a nes among it’s 2 games,but ROB turned out to be very clumsy and unhandy to use(why using double A and see battery’s to run the robot, why could it not run from it’s own power supply instead??

6,also it’s a miracle that supermariobros became a trigger point as well for consumers to wanna buy a nes Considering pac land was eventually ported to the C64,amstrad cpc,m and atari xe etc,,,

also nintendo’s special relation with hudson soft allowed to make games with their ip’s for the pc88 including mariobros special,donkeykong 3,supermariobros special etc,,,

7,all thinks concidered the atari 7800 should,ve be the biggest threat against nintendo’s nes because not only was it slightly more advanced(apart from the infirior soundchip) but it also was backwards compatible with atari 2600 games and it’s controllers (something the nes didn’t have) and it did had good conversions of nintendo games on it as well,

the atari 7800 did had a much much more cooler sleeker design then the nes along with it’s better toploading cartride mechanism(the nes just looks like an giant old concreat brick,

8,also nintendo never sold(unlike in japan) a keyboard with famicom basic,cassette drive and a disk system in the us or eu,let alone coming with a set of it,wich they could,ve tried to convince stock markets and consummers that the nes was also a hybrid system just like the C64 (eventrough they did had a prototype avs nes system)

9,also atati’s 7800 super system did had a lockout chip to preven unautherized crappy games to be on their system as well,

10, the nes was not Z80 based as opposed to the colecovision,SG1000 and SG3000/mark3 (sega master system) but nintendo wanted to be sure that their arcade games could run on it then why opting for a 6502 chip instead? Apart from coleco It should,ve be the other way around ,but even more strange is that despite the nes was made with scrolling in mind,sky skipper was not ported to the nes but it was ported to the atari 2600 wich was never made with scrolling in mind,was it? (Who had ever tout that,a nintendo game on another system but never made it on it’s own system??)

also moon patrol was never ported to the nes but it was ported to the atari 2600 wich i found odd for the same technical reason,

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

 

so these are the reason why i think why it is such miracle that the nes was a huge success,same thing with the gameboy since the game pocket system and microvision came before.

 

 

Nintendo walked into an abandoned market everyone thought was dead.  There were no mass mainstream consoles on the market when the NES was introduced in the US. Nintendo had a lot of money and was able to push the console.

 

"8,also nintendo never sold(unlike in japan) a keyboard with famicom basic,cassette drive and a disk system in the us or eu,let alone coming with a set of it,wich they could,ve tried to convince stock markets and consummers that the nes was also a hybrid system just like the C64 (eventrough they did had a prototype avs nes system)"

 

Nintendo made a very wise choice in neither promising or actually creating and selling a keyboard computer add-on. It would have failed spectacularly. It would have sucked, just like the Japanese version sucks.  Just like the atari basic cartridge sucks.  The Adam doesn't suck as bad as these guys, but it was hundreds of dollars and replaced the hardware. It doesn't even use the CPU or RAM or video chip in the Colecovision.

 

"3,the nes was not that more powerful and not in everyway from other systems."

 

The NES was considerably more powerful than any of the game consoles people owned or could buy. There were no new consoles on the market and the ones that were there were abandoned. You were lucky to find software for them, let alone the consoles. The 7800 had only had the test release in limited markets and that test was over AFAIK by the time the NES released in the US.  The other main consoles were all old, the 2600, intellivision, the 5200, Colecovision, vectrex and others. None could compete with the NES even if they were still being mass marketed (with the stipulation that the 7800s release was still in the future. even so, the NES more or less out competes the 7800 anyway as far as released games went)

 

"10, the nes was not Z80 based as opposed to the colecovision,SG1000 and SG3000/mark3 (sega master system) but nintendo wanted to be sure that their arcade games could run on it then why opting for a 6502 chip instead?"

 

WHO exactly knew this? WHO exactly cared?  Really, who cares even today?  The PPU and sound chip are the driving force of the NES. The NES is not really held back much by having a 6502, at least not to any extent which having a Z80 would have rectified.

 

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

 

They had the console gaming market cornered.  "Nintendo" very quickly overtook "Atari" as a synonym for "video games".  Who knows what would have happened if Nintendo hadn't made most of the devs sign exclusive contracts.  Atari was a shadow of its former self under new management and badly strapped for cash.  Tramiel wouldn't support it (7800). Didn't really have the money to properly support it.  And he saw it as an easy cash-grab. He wanted computers, not game consoles. He also launched a competitor to it. He totally confused the market by releasing 2 different consoles (XEGS/7800) at the same time.  Coleco was bankrupt and left the industry. Mattel was much better off than Coleco or Atari, but wanted no parts in the video game industry.

 

The success of the NES was probably a coincidence based on timing more than anything else. A couple years earlier and they probably would have gotten crushed in the collapse and gave up on the US market. A couple years later and Sega owns the market. Sega also got into the US market in 86, but didn't have the cash to really push it.  I never even heard of it until the early 90s.

 

 

What is a bigger mystery is how almost the entire industry thought games were a fad that was over and home computer gaming was the future if gaming even had a future.  They got it 180 degrees wrong. "Home computers" were already dying and the gaming industry become a multi billion Dollar juggernaut.  The industry is so powerful it basically has a fake industry it is able to impose on us. Modern consoles are near indistinguishable from desktop PCs and have become a racket like almost everything else in America.

[Silver Back]

Well yeah @christo930 explains it well. Video games were abandoned and deemed a fad (in the US) and a big hole was left in the home market.  People wanted video games but they wanted confidence that what they were buying was quality.

 

It wasn't luck that Nintendo came in and renewed the market, and still they took massive risks in doing so. If the NES failed Nintendo was done in America, but they had developed and executed a well thought out plan.  

 

In terms of marketing they convinced parents and consumers that this isn't one of those failed videos games, it's the new must have toy.  They convinced retailers that stocking our merchandise isnt a risk because we'll buy back whatever doesn't sell. And they had a team, from the developers to the executives, that believed in what they were doing and worked hard to release the best games anybody had seen in the home to that point. 

 

Jack Tramiel had interest in releasing the 7800 immediately after taking over Atari, but at a price point so low that nobody would've profited except him.  Since GCC was owed royalties on every sale and hadn't been paid for their work, he wasn't able to do that. If he did do what he initially planned it would've been more of the same. Atari was soulless when it came to home video games at the time. Even if they came out in 1984 (ahead of the NES) they weren't set up for success. 

 

One last point but games consoles that could be turned into computers never worked and I think Michael Katz said it best (referring to the XEGS in Atari 2600/7800 Compendium) that console players didn't want to mess with keyboards, disc drives and a bunch of computer add ons; and computer players didn't want a weak bare bones computer.  Those add ons satisfied nobody except people who wanted to dip there toes, but there wasn't enough of them to matter. 

[christo930]

2 hours ago, Silver Back said:

It wasn't luck that Nintendo came in and renewed the market, and still they took massive risks in doing so. If the NES failed Nintendo was done in America, but they had developed and executed a well thought out plan.  

Good luck is of no use to those who cannot or will not capitalize on it.  Nintendo had the cash and a good plan, I agree with that. But the market conditions which existed at the time they stormed America, made those plans a lot more effective.

[Ecernosoft]

On 4/23/2022 at 9:15 PM, fiddlepaddle said:

It all boils down to marketing, my friend. Tech specs only very rarely make or break a product.

Example: 2600

if specs translated to sales this thing would sell poorly. Yet it sold 30 million. The 7800 had awesome specs yet it only sold 4 million. Only difference? The games!

[johannesmutlu]

Well once supermariobros was all the rage,both sega and atari decided to come up with their own mascott,alex kidd and scrapyard dog,as a ansure to nintendo’s supermariobors and whether they failed or not they atleast did a nice try against nintendo and i am very proud to own those games as well,am also proud to own those sports games from atari,sega and nintendo along with ports of (ms) pac man on both systems either too😁👍

Edited November 26, 2022 by johannesmutlu

[johannesmutlu]

On 11/19/2022 at 4:34 AM, christo930 said:

 

Nintendo walked into an abandoned market everyone thought was dead.  There were no mass mainstream consoles on the market when the NES was introduced in the US. Nintendo had a lot of money and was able to push the console.

 

"8,also nintendo never sold(unlike in japan) a keyboard with famicom basic,cassette drive and a disk system in the us or eu,let alone coming with a set of it,wich they could,ve tried to convince stock markets and consummers that the nes was also a hybrid system just like the C64 (eventrough they did had a prototype avs nes system)"

 

Nintendo made a very wise choice in neither promising or actually creating and selling a keyboard computer add-on. It would have failed spectacularly. It would have sucked, just like the Japanese version sucks.  Just like the atari basic cartridge sucks.  The Adam doesn't suck as bad as these guys, but it was hundreds of dollars and replaced the hardware. It doesn't even use the CPU or RAM or video chip in the Colecovision.

 

"3,the nes was not that more powerful and not in everyway from other systems."

 

The NES was considerably more powerful than any of the game consoles people owned or could buy. There were no new consoles on the market and the ones that were there were abandoned. You were lucky to find software for them, let alone the consoles. The 7800 had only had the test release in limited markets and that test was over AFAIK by the time the NES released in the US.  The other main consoles were all old, the 2600, intellivision, the 5200, Colecovision, vectrex and others. None could compete with the NES even if they were still being mass marketed (with the stipulation that the 7800s release was still in the future. even so, the NES more or less out competes the 7800 anyway as far as released games went)

 

"10, the nes was not Z80 based as opposed to the colecovision,SG1000 and SG3000/mark3 (sega master system) but nintendo wanted to be sure that their arcade games could run on it then why opting for a 6502 chip instead?"

 

WHO exactly knew this? WHO exactly cared?  Really, who cares even today?  The PPU and sound chip are the driving force of the NES. The NES is not really held back much by having a 6502, at least not to any extent which having a Z80 would have rectified.

 

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

 

They had the console gaming market cornered.  "Nintendo" very quickly overtook "Atari" as a synonym for "video games".  Who knows what would have happened if Nintendo hadn't made most of the devs sign exclusive contracts.  Atari was a shadow of its former self under new management and badly strapped for cash.  Tramiel wouldn't support it (7800). Didn't really have the money to properly support it.  And he saw it as an easy cash-grab. He wanted computers, not game consoles. He also launched a competitor to it. He totally confused the market by releasing 2 different consoles (XEGS/7800) at the same time.  Coleco was bankrupt and left the industry. Mattel was much better off than Coleco or Atari, but wanted no parts in the video game industry.

 

The success of the NES was probably a coincidence based on timing more than anything else. A couple years earlier and they probably would have gotten crushed in the collapse and gave up on the US market. A couple years later and Sega owns the market. Sega also got into the US market in 86, but didn't have the cash to really push it.  I never even heard of it until the early 90s.

 

 

What is a bigger mystery is how almost the entire industry thought games were a fad that was over and home computer gaming was the future if gaming even had a future.  They got it 180 degrees wrong. "Home computers" were already dying and the gaming industry become a multi billion Dollar juggernaut.  The industry is so powerful it basically has a fake industry it is able to impose on us. Modern consoles are near indistinguishable from desktop PCs and have become a racket like almost everything else in America.

True that.

[Silver Back]

38 minutes ago, johannesmutlu said:

Well once supermariobros was all the rage,both sega and atari decided to come up with their own mascott,alex kidd and scrappyard dog,as a ansure to nintendo’s supermariobors

By the time Scrapyard Dog came out roughly 3 Super Mario games had been released. I wouldn't say it was "once super Mario released" but more like an extremely late response to the popularity of platformers.  Never the less I think the game gets judged harshly and I've actually enjoyed it on occasion but I don't believe they ever intended Scrapyard Dog to be their mascot.