/vr/ - Retro Games

>>5764768
>R.O.B. has to be the biggest failure in Nintendo history. Even worse than the Virtual Boy.
The big nationwide retailers would not even carry the NES or any other console after 1984. They all got burned and were not interested. For Nintendo to sell it nationwide, outside of electronics specialty shops, they had to make it a toy not a video game.

Even though rob was a useless gimmick, retailers demanded it be included because it made it more marketable as a toy. All early Nintendo marketing pushed ROB exclusively, and also pushed the "VHS style" loading system to differentiate it from traditional topload game consoles. They always called it an entertainment product and not a video game console.

"Yea it happens to also play games but that isnt its primary purpose" was how Nintendo sold it to distributors. Without ROB the NES would have been delayed from market at least another year or two. The original NES box from 1985 had nothing but a picture of ROB on it, that is how important the stupid little robot was to toystores.