Again, I call the video game crash "bullsh*t".

[CartridgeStealer]

How can people say there was a "crash" when there was a huge selection of video arcade games cranking out? There is something more.  Did kids all of a sudden  say "hey, video games are boring and I would rather type on my computer!" Can someone find me someone that got sick of these games? I never did. Ok rant over. Prove me wrong. Home video.game systems had 100s of games to make a library every years.

[MrTrust]

[Cebus Capucinis]

Wow, and imagine an alternate history where either of 1) Warner didn't buy Atari or 2) Atari got the rights to the NES happened, wow mind blown, why haven't people talked about this ever before?

[Lord Mushroom]

There was a crash, but a lot of people were still buying/playing games:

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

 

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/328425-how-did-you-find-out-about-the-crashtm/#comment-4967399

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/310508-computers-and-the-videogame-crash-of-the-80s/#comment-4615973

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/287129-great-atari-crash/#comment-4198131

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/288961-how-severe-was-the-video-game-crash-of-1977/#comment-4233812

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/272171-north-american-computer-market-crash/#comment-3892146

Edited May 13, 2023 by OldSchoolRetroGamer

[Crimefighter]

There was definitely a crash on the console side of things, no doubt about that - the arcades didn't take as big of a hit as nintendo was putting out its VS. series, with the killer game Super Mario which then led to a revival of the console side. 

[Cebus Capucinis]

6 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

There was a crash, but a lot of people were still buying/playing games:

Where's Amico in that? Their market share of every human on Earth must be so large it can't scale to this graph properly, that must explain it.

[MrMaddog]

[+x=usr(1536)]

16 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

Wow, and imagine an alternate history where either of 1) Warner didn't buy Atari or 2) Atari got the rights to the NES happened, wow mind blown, why haven't people talked about this ever before?

Did you know that in Europe the crash never happened?  Also, they had computers named Clive and the electricity is bigger than America's because they have more people and wires and whatnot.

[+bent_pin]

18 hours ago, CartridgeStealer said:

How can people say there was a "crash" when there was a huge selection of video arcade games cranking out?

How can people say there's a recession when the government keeps printing money?

 Ever see a ten trillion dollar note? You can buy them for a few dollars on eBay.

 

Edit: presented as an analog, not the beginning of a political discussion. I like you all and as such I don't want to talk politics.

Edited May 14, 2023 by bent_pin

[CartridgeStealer]

I've heard all those excuses. Video game quality always got better over the year. I think atari pushing a 2 bit system for almost 15 years killed atari, not other systems. Yea coleco shot themselves in the foot and outside contractors cranked out shitty computer games as opposed to arcade games is beyond me. 

[LaserCat]

As someone who was a young teen at the time of the crash I can say most certainly me and my friends vastly reduced the amount of time we spent playing games. New console game releases slowed and then stopped altogether. The magazines we subscribed to went bi-monthly and then folded. My parents were too poor to afford a computer and my rural, small town school had a total of 3 computers so that wasn’t an option. Personally I went back to riding bike, hiking, reading books, and watching Hammer horror movies on the weekend. I recall the first time I saw a Nintendo commercial and I was shocked that anyone would attempt to market a video game system. In my mind the hobby had run its course. Of course I eventually fell in love with the NES but that love ended when I lost my virginity.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 14, 2023 by LaserCat

[MrTrust]

As someone who was a big into Ping Pong at the time, all I know is if Mattel has gotten the rights to Sonic the Hedgehog in '82, there would have been a killer app for the Vectrex laserdisc peripheral, and it would have sold at least 10 million units.  Phillips would never have made the 3D0, so Nintendo would have been free to make the deal with Nokia to put Crash Bandicoot on the Game.com and Atari would have kept the rights to Revenge of the Beefsteak Tomatoes for the VR market, and then how many Ouyas would have passed FCC certification?

Edited May 14, 2023 by MrTrust

[+x=usr(1536)]

2 hours ago, CartridgeStealer said:

I think atari pushing a 2 bit system for almost 15 years killed atari

The 6507 was an 8-bit CPU, not 2-bit.  However, if you Do The Math™, eight of them duct-taped together equals 64 bits and that's how the Jaguar was made!

 

Can't believe how many inaccuracies and misconceptions there are in this thread.

[Cebus Capucinis]

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

 

Can't believe how many inaccuracies and misconceptions there are in this thread.

 

I know, like the biggest one of all, that the "crash" ACTUALLY happened. What a crock. We all know it was that the lizard people couldn't stand the pitches of the sounds, so had to restrict supply until they could create invisible headphones to block it out.

 

I heard this hard truth from someone whose upstanding credentials in their name includes the word "Stealer," so it's beyond reproach.

[+x=usr(1536)]

49 minutes ago, LaserCat said:

Of course I eventually fell in love with the NES but that love ended when I lost my virginity.

Ok, I gotta ask: how does one lose one's virginity to an NES, anyway?  I mean, there's that unused slot on the bottom and I guess you could do something with the cartridge door, but it's just not clear.  Asking for a friend.

[Cebus Capucinis]

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

Ok, I gotta ask: how does one lose one's virginity to an NES, anyway?  I mean, there's that unused slot on the bottom and I guess you could do something with the cartridge door, but it's just not clear.  Asking for a friend.

You're assuming it's a front loader and not a healthy combination of top loader and Kama Sutra.

[+x=usr(1536)]

27 minutes ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

I know, like the biggest one of all, that the "crash" ACTUALLY happened. What a crock. We all know it was that the lizard people couldn't stand the pitches of the sounds, so had to restrict supply until they could create invisible headphones to block it out.

A little-known fact is that Atari's Video Music console was adapted into a disguise to allow for Resistance infiltration of the Visitors' army.  However, the Video Music never actually saw use in combat as the first production units were finished three days before the L.A. Resistance blew up their mothership and simply could not be delivered to the field quickly enough.  After the Visitors' retreat, a few thousand Video Music glasses were laying in storage, unused, and with no obvious application.

 

 

 

(Note that this is an early version as evidenced by the headphones; once it was found that humans did not need to be shielded from the sounds the headphones were eliminated entirely.)

 

Atari kept developing the Video Music technology even after victory by the Resistance.  This proved to be prescient when, in 1988, a different race of aliens bent on taking over the planet was found to be embedded at all levels of society, with some turncoat humans even assisting them willingly with their plans.  The Video Music glasses were quickly redesigned to take advantage of technological developments and distributed all over Los Angeles, where they proved to be invaluable both outside of and within engagements with the enemy.

 

 

Fortunately, this invasion was also repealed.  Nobody really knows what happened to the glasses or the technology after that, though some have suggested that they may have been stolen and redesigned once again by a person known to offer drugs to disaffected tech sector employees.

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

7 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

You're assuming it's a front loader and not a healthy combination of top loader and Kama Sutra.

Ehh, that's getting into Famiclone fetishism territory and I my friend that I'm asking the question for doesn't swing that way.  Wrong number of pins and all that.  So I've heard.  Not that there's anything wrong with it.  Y'know, it's 2023.  Yup.  Just asking for a friend.

[roots.genoa]

All I know is I was three years old at the time, so I didn't notice anything which means it never happened, right? I mean, I'm the protagonist of this story and you're all NPCs to me anyway.

[LaserCat]

Top loader

Front loader

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 14, 2023 by LaserCat

[+GoldLeader]

Look at the amount of money being made off home console games by Atari, Mattel, and Coleco.  Now compare balance sheets for American sales for the years 1980,  1981,  1982,  and 1983 by each company.

 

THERE.

 

You're proven wrong.

[+GoldLeader]

PS:  Part of the problem was when smaller 3rd party companies went under,  their inventory was blown out at closeout prices,  and money being spent there also affected sales for bigger, full priced games...

[+bent_pin]

1 hour ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

a healthy combination of top loader and Kama Sutra.

*Cartma Sutra

Edited May 14, 2023 by bent_pin

[Cebus Capucinis]

I get the impression the other end of this is some forum/Facebook/Discord/whatever going "HA YEAH I trolled them SO GOOD BRUH check the link all those FAT NERDS were getting SO MAD ha EBIN WEEEN bussin*"

 

*or whatever nonsense phrase the kids are using these days