It’s a miracle the nes sold like hot cakes

[+GoldLeader]

On 6/1/2022 at 8:27 AM, 5-11under said:

It's a miracle that I just discovered that hot cakes are pancakes.

 Funny you say that because as a kid my Grandpa used to always say hotcakes and one day we ate breakfast and I was all,  "Oh!  That's what you mean!"...Haha!

[toiletunes]

I prefer flapjacks.

[The Usotsuki]

I know in Japanese it's ホットケーキ (hottokeeki)...

 

I just call 'em pancakes.

[roots.genoa]

ホットケーキ is the Japanese transcription of "hot cake" I guess.

[+GoldLeader]

I actually had some tonight...The kind you put in the toaster.   I blame this thread for putting it in my head. 

[johannesmutlu]

Am blown away that nintendo did not used a lawsuit case against coleco for using the name “family computer” for their ill fated adam computer addon and stand alone version of it,

that’s becau the nintendo family computer was released on july 15 1983 while the adam computer was released in october 1983 thus 3 month’s later then the famicom,now while it is true that coleco & nintendo did had a personal relation with each other,but did it allowed coleco to put nintendo’s console name on their computer systems?

sure the adam computer was never released in japan but still,now had nintendo just called their japanese nes “famicom” instead to be a derivation of the name “family computer” then it wouldn’t have be a problem ,am amezed coleco was not afraid to be ever in trouble with nintendo about using that name,

 

speaking about a lawsuit, nintendo also should,ve also used a lawsuit against epix,because mario was first called jump man,so why was epix not sewed by nintendo for using that name for their derivated version of a donkeykong rip off of it,is beyond me,

BTW if that didn’t makes any sense anymore ,then i wonder if there is an official mario game released for a system without being a derivation from nintendo’s mario games,because if that’s the case,then somebody here needs to be prove it to me,

also nintendo should have used a lawsuit against nike for using that name for their jordan baskettball promotion and other sports were,well am glad nintendo atleast attempted a lawsuit against sony for using the name “playstation” or “play station” and whether they failed against sony or not they atleast tried it?

but still i consider it whether or not the high costs to nintendo to ever use a lawsuit against epix and coleco to use their brand name as a side name or main name for their systems or characters,if nintendo did won the case against them,they might could,ve be a few million dollars richer,just maybe.

 

 

Edited June 8, 2022 by johannesmutlu

[zzip]

3 hours ago, johannesmutlu said:

Am blown away that nintendo did not used a lawsuit case against coleco for using the name “family computer” for their ill fated adam computer addon and stand alone version of it,

that’s becau the nintendo family computer was released on july 15 1983 while the adam computer was released in october 1983 thus 3 month’s later then the famicom,now while it is true that coleco & nintendo did had a personal relation with each other,but did it allowed coleco to put nintendo’s console name on their computer systems?

sure the adam computer was never released in japan but still,now had nintendo just called their japanese nes “famicom” instead to be a derivation of the name “family computer” then it wouldn’t have be a problem ,am amezed coleco was not afraid to be ever in trouble with nintendo about using that name,

The world was much less globalized then and they were releasing in different markets governed by different legal systems.   The easier thing to do is just change the name when you release in a different market,  which Nintendo did.   Also a name like "Family Computer" is very generic and might be hard to make the trademark stick if challenged.

[johannesmutlu]

3 hours ago, zzip said:

The world was much less globalized then and they were releasing in different markets governed by different legal systems.   The easier thing to do is just change the name when you release in a different market,  which Nintendo did.   Also a name like "Family Computer" is very generic and might be hard to make the trademark stick if challenged.

That’s true,hence sega renamed their 16bit console the sega genesis in the us rather then calling it sega megadrive like they did in asia and europe,since the name megadrive was used by an other company.

also nintendo couldn’t use the name ultra for it’s N64 since the name ultra was used by konami.

[Atariboy2600]

It’s a miracle that the Atari was still selling the VCS under the model name 2600 Jr and was in market from 1977 and did not discontinuation till 1992 even with systems from NES, SNES, Master System and Genesis.

 

[+GoldLeader]

7 hours ago, johannesmutlu said:

Am blown away that nintendo did not used a lawsuit case against coleco for using the name “family computer” for their ill fated adam computer addon and stand alone version of it,

that’s becau the nintendo family computer was released on july 15 1983 while the adam computer was released in october 1983 thus 3 month’s later then the famicom,now while it is true that coleco & nintendo did had a personal relation with each other,but did it allowed coleco to put nintendo’s console name on their computer systems?

sure the adam computer was never released in japan but still,now had nintendo just called their japanese nes “famicom” instead to be a derivation of the name “family computer” then it wouldn’t have be a problem ,am amezed coleco was not afraid to be ever in trouble with nintendo about using that name,

 

speaking about a lawsuit, nintendo also should,ve also used a lawsuit against epix,because mario was first called jump man,so why was epix not sewed by nintendo for using that name for their derivated version of a donkeykong rip off of it,is beyond me,

BTW if that didn’t makes any sense anymore ,then i wonder if there is an official mario game released for a system without being a derivation from nintendo’s mario games,because if that’s the case,then somebody here needs to be prove it to me,

also nintendo should have used a lawsuit against nike for using that name for their jordan baskettball promotion and other sports were,well am glad nintendo atleast attempted a lawsuit against sony for using the name “playstation” or “play station” and whether they failed against sony or not they atleast tried it?

but still i consider it whether or not the high costs to nintendo to ever use a lawsuit against epix and coleco to use their brand name as a side name or main name for their systems or characters,if nintendo did won the case against them,they might could,ve be a few million dollars richer,just maybe.

 

 

 

It's a miracle you think there should have been so many lawsuits.

 

[+5-11under]

19 minutes ago, Atariboy2600 said:

It’s a miracle that the Atari was still selling the VCS under the model name 2600 Jr and was in market from 1977 and did not discontinuation till 1992 even with systems from NES, SNES, Master System and Genesis.

That's the nearest thing to a miracle we've got here.

[+save2600]

 

[fiddlepaddle]

In any of the games or movies or TV series, was there an Addams Family Computer? 

 

Maybe the heirs of Charles Addams, creator of The Addams Family cartoons could get richer by suing Nintendo?

 

or maybe Coleco should have sued Ocean Software?

 

No, I don't think so.  Lawsuits are expensive and you must prove damages (or get real lucky).

[roots.genoa]

It's a miracle that thread is not locked yet. ?

[The Usotsuki]

Thing about Famicom is that ファミコン was, at the time, a trademark of Sharp for something else - think it was a microwave or a convection oven - and I think Nintendo was worried about that, so they just went with the full name and figured that most Japanese people would abbreviate it, as Japanese people do, to the first two syllables of each word, and they wouldn't need to officially call it "Famicom", people would just call it that anyway. (Note that in the 8-bit era, they never actually used the name Famicom...but Sharp's licensed version DID.)

 

A few deals with Sharp and they managed to get the trademark, so the 16-bit successor became Super Famicom.

[+sixersfan105]

On 6/8/2022 at 9:29 AM, zzip said:

The world was much less globalized then and they were releasing in different markets governed by different legal systems.   The easier thing to do is just change the name when you release in a different market,  which Nintendo did.   Also a name like "Family Computer" is very generic and might be hard to make the trademark stick if challenged.

100%. Also, @johannesmutlu, how bout when Mattel branded their Aquarius computer as the "Complete Family Computer System," which pre-dated both Nintendo's and Coleco's offerings. Sooooo yeah. 

[Keatah]

The name was still Aquarius. "Complete Family Computer System" is just a descriptor, like "fast computer".

[Keatah]

On 6/8/2022 at 1:15 PM, Atariboy2600 said:

It’s a miracle that the Atari was still selling the VCS under the model name 2600 Jr and was in market from 1977 and did not discontinuation till 1992 even with systems from NES, SNES, Master System and Genesis.

Ahh no miracle at all. It was a great design for that time. Apple II did the same thing. There were revisions to Apple II hardware - adding capability (but not speed). And there were revisions to the cartridge hardware for the 2600 Jr., new bankswitch schemes, bigger memory.

 

The 2600 has complex-to-program hardware, but is simplistic to the end user/gamer. It was able to satisfy the more learned developer as well as challenge the gamer.

[johannesmutlu]

4 hours ago, sixersfan105 said:

100%. Also, @johannesmutlu, how bout when Mattel branded their Aquarius computer as the "Complete Family Computer System," which pre-dated both Nintendo's and Coleco's offerings. Sooooo yeah. 

Heeey Wooow, i absolutely never heard or readed about that mattel aquarius computer,man i swear the more i will dive into the history of computers and game consoles among it’s competitors,the more interesting it will get and the more discussions will be put by many more retro fanatics here ,this is another awesome stuff for wich i wanna learn more about it,againg thx alot for mentioning this?

[+sixersfan105]

7 hours ago, Keatah said:

The name was still Aquarius. "Complete Family Computer System" is just a descriptor, like "fast computer".

Well, sure, but the aforementioned Coleco Adam was also just the Coleco Adam and the "ColecoVision Family Computer System" was just a descriptor ?

[+GoldLeader]

Was there anybody who didn't describe their computer as a"Family Computer" back then?

 

That'd be like trying to find toothpaste without the word "whitening" somewhere on the box.   

 

[Crazy Climber]

I love my Atari 2600, it's very precious to me and if I could only have one old system it would win...

 

...but when the NES hit I didn't look back for a very long time. 

 

I know they talk about home computers or even "the crash" killing the video game industry back in 84 but a lot of us kids didn't really know any of that was going on and were ready for something better, something new.

 

It would have been near impossible for the 7800 to give us what the NES did for a plethora of reasons already mentioned a million times in a million topics (and tech specs is the least of those reasons) The bottom line in my opinion is Atari, like a lot of the "grown up" world, thought video game systems were dead.

 

Nintendo didn't...and they were right :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[+sixersfan105]

46 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:

Was there anybody who didn't describe their computer as a"Family Computer" back then?

 

That'd be like trying to find toothpaste without the word "whitening" somewhere on the box.   

 

Haha truth and my thoughts exactly!

[Keatah]

6 minutes ago, Crazy Climber said:

I know they talk about home computers or even "the crash" killing the video game industry back in 84 but a lot of us kids didn't really know any of that was going on and were ready for something better, something new.

That's generally true for most all of us. I viewed it as a transition into more capable hardware, which happened to be computers. Bigger memory, bigger megahertzes, 16bits, more sounds and colors.. a natural evolution.

 

The market needed something different than shit 3rd party VCS games. Games being done by every Tom, Dick, and Harry wanting in on the craze weren't capturing consumer interest.

 

The market needed strong branding and less regurgitation. Something the Tramiels weren't navigating right. All they knew was cost-cutting and cheap cheap cheap. Us kids were discouraged to the point of saying "what's this shit" when someone like Zimag or Mythicon or whatever popped up with a game that was essentially a clone of something. Thankfully The Big N thought differently!

[Keatah]

1 hour ago, GoldLeader said:

Was there anybody who didn't describe their computer as a"Family Computer" back then?

That'd be like trying to find toothpaste without the word "whitening" somewhere on the box.   

That's right..!

 

Here was a highly versatile, almost industrial/techie bare-metal computer, stuffed into clothes for a family outing. Drawing from a wardrobe of an RF modulator, disk drive, a few carefully selected bits of software, and superb documentation understandable by a kid or technical neophyte - the Family System package hit the town in style and made it all that more desirable.

 

Edited June 10, 2022 by Keatah