The great classic console rivalries

[Mendon]

I wonder if Atari even marketed their products outside of North America, the U.K. and France.

 

I often wondered if they even marketed in the U.S., MMF

 

Where I lived, only Toy's R Us had the Lynx for sale and not many games for it at all. Almost none of the other major chains carried it and if you can't get mass distribution and be able to walk into Kmart, Sear's, Ward's, etc and find a Lynx, then methinks the product is headed for a quick demise.

 

Well, unless you can get George Foreman to endorse it as his "Lean, Mean, Sprite Bustin, Gaming Machine".

 

Mendon

[tyranthraxus]

Not game based but the Apple vs IBM war is a fasinating one.

[Great Hierophant]

What do you think if history gave the 5200 v. Colecovision war another year, two years, even three years? The war ended in only two years, not quite enough time for a decent war. Same goes for Turbo Grafx-16 vs. Genesis, just got overshadowed by the Genesis vs. SNES rivalry. What about Turbo CD vs. Sega CD? In my view Turbo had the power and the games to wipe the Sega CD off the map, but never got enough good games over here.

 

Then there is the recent 3-way bout between the Playstation, Saturn, and N64. I don't think it was a particularly well-matched fight as the Saturn had comparatively poor 3-D hardware and a dearth of good titles while the N64 suffered limitations of the cartridge format and lacked 3rd party support.

 

I think the most surprising result of a war is the Atari ST vs. Amiga war. Interestingly this war seemed to be fought the hardest on European shores. In the previous war, in the US the Commodore 64 fought the 8-bit Ataris but in Europe fought the Spectrum, eventually winning both. While the Amiga had to win the war over the underpowered Atari STs, it really did not matter. At the beginning of the 90's, it was the PC-compatible computers that dominated the computer gaming field, forever changing the face of gaming on a computer. Sidescrollers, action games, shoot 'em ups, beat 'em ups, gone. RPGs, strategy, adventures, and FPSes, generally more complex games thrived.

[bergbros2]

Sega v. Nintendo probably had the most impact and influenced the gaming industry today. The Sega scream, Zelda and Sega does what Ninetend-don't probably have entered the gaming lexicon and even pop culture more than any other console battle.