/vr/ - Retro Games

Low entry cost for developers
Extremely high installed customer base due to cheap hardware plus killer app (pokemon)

>>1686998
They started early, started strong, and kept at least one generation of backwards compatibility since the beginning. Also, their competitors were battery guzzling fuckups

Nintendo won because the Gameboy was:
>ridiculously cheap, I think it sold at <$100?
>MUCH lighter than a Game Gear (GG with the battery pack weighed close to two pounds)
>durable enough to survive dirt, water and eight-year-olds
>extremely easy to develop for due to simplistic hardware
>also, it's one of the few handhelds ever made that can be played in direct sunlight

>>1687109
>durable enough to survive dirt, water and eight-year-olds

Don't forget bombs.

>also, it's one of the few handhelds ever made that can be played in direct sunlight

You almost had to or else you couldn't see the screen very well.

>>1686998

Yamauchi offered Gunpei Yokoi as a sacrifice to the Yakuza gods in exchange for Nintendo being invincible in the game market. However, like the monkey's paw, this meant that their home console market had to be handed to Sony.

>tfw two of the Game Boy's killer apps were actually third party games

>>1686998
No one else had the degree of experience that Nintendo had at making good 2D games. And by the time 3D rolled around, Nintendo had things like ideal mechanics and pacing down.

That's why Sony failed with PSP, because most of it was just portable console games. The pacing was just wrong and many times you'd have only a moment to play, but the games didn't allow you to work around that fact.

On the other hand, DS had 3D handheld games. They were built around the idea of "on the move", and Nintendo had a ton more experience with that by then. And Nintendo generally give any good idea a try, while Sony (and others) stick strictly with what they know. Ironically, the opposite of how they all work on home consoles...

I think it's as simple as that though. If Sony hangs in there for another go, then their PSP3 (or Vita2...) could be on par with Nintendo products. They just needed more experience and have to adopt the right attitude next time.

>>1687279
>No one else had the degree of experience that Nintendo had at making good 2D games
This is such bullshit
You realize there are plenty of companies that have been making games as long or longer than Nintendo, right?
SEGA, SNK, etc.

>>1687279
>That's why Sony failed with PSP
The PSP was far from a failure. Sure, it started off slow, but in the end, it sold around 80 million units. Not as much as Nintendo's lineup, but still a very impressive number.

>>1687042
Yeah. It was largely momentum that allowed Nintendo to succeed in the handheld market.

In addition to that, handheld platforms have always had more success with the younger market, which Nintendo had / has a corner on.

Am I the only one who thinks it's crazy that the pulled Slot 2 off of the DS Lite and beyond? I have 2 DS Heavies and when I realized that it blew my fucking mind that they would do that.

>>1687313
DS Lite has a slot 2.

>>1687313
except DS lite does. DSi started with that

>>1687279
>The pacing was just wrong and many times you'd have only a moment to play, but the games didn't allow you to work around that fact.
the psp had shitloads of puzzle and arcade games that were great for small chunks of gameplay

>>1687313
The problem with maintaining BC is that after three or four generations you end up with a ridiculously complex clusterfuck of a device. Take the DS, for example:
>ARM9 "primary" CPU
>ARM7 coprocessor/SPU based on the GBA's CPU
>Z80 clone based on the GBA's SPU, which originally doubled as a GBC CPU
Now you begin to understand why companies are starting to drop hardware BC in favor of emulation.

>>1687042
this
Nintendo must have realized that no one buys a system. they buy games. the system is just there to play the games on. The piles on the games, got the best games for their system, and used their massive user base to attract more games. Packing Tetris in with the original Gameboy was pure genius. better systems didn't have the library the GB did. systems like the NeoGeo Pocket and Wonderswan starved to death.

the thing holding the PSP back is that anybody with money, who plays games, does so on a tv or a computer monitor. nobody plays portable games except kids. the PSP is too expensive and too sophisticated for kids. It works, in Japan, because the japanese spend so much time commuting on trains. in the West, we have cars, so we don't game unless we are at home.

now... Apple is somehow upending my logic, but I am not sure how. I guess its because the iPod and iPhone do so much more than play Pokemon, so that gets it into people's hands. Apple tends to stay out of markets, unless it can dominate, yet it is tiptoeing into the gaming industry.

tiptoeing so carefully that OP doesn't have the iPhone on his graphic!

>>1687363
>companies are starting to drop hardware BC in favor of emulation

I don't know about you guys, but after so long, I really start to dig it when emulation becomes official, especially with handhelds. I've seen videos of 3DS's GBA virtual console games, and I think I can see why they aren't public (yet, hopefully).

Considering how messy DS emulation tends to be I wonder what choice nintey will make with their next handheld gen (besides WiiU DS VC. handheld games on a home console is just lame).

>>1687390
You people must be living in 2006 or something. The PSP has sold very well, and even though it can't match the DS, it still sold well over the course of its lifetime and can be considered a success for Sony.

The Vita, on the other hand, can fall into these things you're talking about. It's good hardware that is limited by the lack of market.

>>1687398
OP asked why no one beat Nintendo. I don't know much about the PSP sales. I just know that Nintendo continues to stomp around like Godzilla

>>1686998
>virtual boy

>>1687406
Nobody's quite sure what they were going for. The thing did take batteries.

>>1687279
I'd say horrible UMD load times were a problem.

Using a PSP is only reasonable when you've dumped all your games to the Memory Stick because of that.

the things are also flimsy as hell compared to Nintendo hardware

It didn't fail though. 60 or so million sure as hell isn't failure. It's the highest any competing handheld has done since the Game Gear's 12 or so million.

>>1687441
Closer to 80 million, actually. It sold nearly as well as the PS3.

>>1687441
>the things are also flimsy as hell compared to Nintendo hardware
That's definitely not true. PSPs were built like tanks, the DS series was probably nintendo's most flimsy and breakable console ever.

>>1687017
They dominated the field long before that killer app.

>>1687458
Except the screens. The screens on the PSP could fuck up way too easily. At least mine did anyway.

>>1687280
Doesn't mean they had the degree of experience in making good ones.

(Also doesn't mean they didn't, just pointing out that the fact there were other companies in existence doesn't make his point untrue.)

-Price
-Nintendium
-Third Party Support
-First Party Excellence
-Multiplayer
-Advertising

>>1686998
because nintendo is the best and most innovative video game company to ever exist

>>1687398
Didn't the psp infamously have a ridiculous consoles purchased to games purchased ratio because it got a reputation as so easy to hack?

>>1687608
Most people who buy PSPs to hack buy them secondhand. Older ones are easier to hack.

Gameboy did well because of the games more than the hardware. It had no real competition when it first launched so game development studios picked that shit up right away. Once you've invested time and money training your programmers in one platform, there's not much incentive to retrain them to develop for another platform. It's a little different these days where developing for any platform is pretty similar, back then code wasn't nearly as portable.

If you really want to look at the hardware, Nintendo was smart by keeping their expectations for the Gameboy realistic with respect to the technology at the time. The Game Gear tried to push the hardware too far so you ended up with this bulky device that chugged power and games that felt slow and clunky. A typical Gameboy game was typically a lot more fun simply because the controls were much more fluid if nothing else. To this day the first thing I notice when playing a Game Gear game is the horrible, game killing input lag.

Part of the Game Boy's success was the company that made it: Nintendo. Nintendo was already successful with the NES, and had numerous franchises under their belt. The Game Boy had spinoffs of all the popular and well loved franchises, such as Castlevania, Contra, Final Fantasy, Ninja Gaiden, Bomberman, as well as Nintendo's own lineup.

How ironic to today where Nintendo hasn't been relevant in the home console market since the SNES. Will Nintendo ever make a home console that will eat up 80% of the marketshare like the NES did?

>>1686998
Inertia.

You have the strength of remakes and ports of old titles, along with new titles that are based on the success of older IPs.

It only takes so many efforts before someone finally starts raking in more dosh than you in the same space. Usually when someone has 1) an established name brand and 2) the ability to attach their competing product with added functionality. Sony was able to trojan horse their PS2 into homes from launch by being a decent DVD player. But on the handheld front, the most successful competitor to Nintendo is Apple iOS.

You have people of all colors, creeds and ages playing Candy Crush Saga on their phones without batting an eye, but a 3DS in public is admittedly laughable.

>>1687614
The name helped a lot. The GB was primarily a kids toy, so who was buying them? Parents. Parents, at least in the US, were more familiar with the name Nintendo than they were with Sega.

Game Boy won for the same reason you can pick up a Game Boy game today and have fun playing it, whereas you probably won't with most Lynx and Game Gear games.

Also, you forgot Tiger handhelds. Those things were so terrible they were awesome.

>>1687398

The only reason it sold so well was because hacking the system is so piss easy that it made for a very good portable emulator system at the time. Game sales were horrible outside of Japan and South Korea because you could just download the games off of any site that hosts roms and such and stick them into your hacked system. And now you know why the Vita uses it's own unique memory cards.

>>1687614

>Will Nintendo ever make a home console that will eat up 80% of the marketshare like the NES did?

The Wii is the closets they will ever get to that...

>>1687109
>extremely easy to develop for due to simplistic hardware

While it was easier compared to direct competitors, wasn't the NES still easier since 6502 was more popular than Z80 at one point? Much less, the Game Boy used a special CPU that utilized the Z80 instruction set but wasn't quite a Z80, while the NES used a 6502 that had no decimal mode.

>>1687615
>a 3DS in public is admittedly laughable.

Oh no. Why do I feel like I'm in /v/ again...

>>1687628

Senior year, saw someone bust out a hacked PSP playing all sorts of games that otherwise they shouldn't have. That shit was alright.

>>1687627
>there will never be a tiger handheld emulator

>>1687632
The Wii only had 38% of the market at the end, while the 360 and PS3 continue to eat up the marketshare. The SNES by comparison had just under 50% of the console marketshare by the end, though it faced an uphill battle against the PC Engine and Genesis.

So Nintendo just needs 50% and they will be king again.

>>1687406
thing is, it cant really by considered a console since it was its own self contained system, you did not require a television or AC power, and could technically set it up anywhere, its more a portable console than a handheld gaming device

Nintendo should just abandon 3D and focus on extreme 2D technology

>>1687636
Yeah, I see a 3DS in public daily. Usually multiple. I will probably see at least one coworker playing one in a break room, and at least one kid playing one while out and about.

>>1687627
>tfw I still have my original Gameboy my dad bought for me as a young child
and its a blurry mess, but its MY blurry mess
I always loved playing on my grandmother's GB Pocket more

>>1687656
My old GB screen is all blurry too. I really need to look into repairing or replacing it.

>>1687651
>extreme 2D technology

Uh, I hope you mean 2D as in without three-dimensional affect. I have no idea what extreme sprite technology is supposed to mean.

I would expect nintey's next handheld to be not as good, but at least somewhere as good as the Vita in terms of hardware. The 3DS's 3D graphics are incomparably better than the DS's awful 3D graphics, but there are times where you can tell developers are struggling to make the most of it.

>>1687628
I highly doubt that 80 million people bought brand new PSPs just to hack them.

Almost everyone that I know who bought a PSP to hack bought a used one because Sony caught on and made it harder to hack newer ones.

>>1687672
As in EXTREME SPRITES BLITTING ALL OVER THE PLACE SHITTING COLORS OUT ALL OVER YOUR SCREEN AND ROTATING PIXELS

>>1687672
I think he means that instead of simplistic 2d sprites, complex sprites and/or art assets instead of pixels, like that cuphead game

The number of idiots in this thread is astounding.

The reason why nobody's beaten Nintendo in handheld gaming is because they don't push the envelope: they make a decent enough device that's cheap, easy to pick up (figuratively and literally), and doesn't chug battery life like there's no tomorrow. Its main competitors tried to push the envelope and ended up doing the opposite. I was a Sega kid growing up and got a Game Gear; ended up going through batteries like crazy. Shit adds up, and that's on top of the higher price for the system and the games.

Basically, Nintendo's business model has always been to make something relatively cheap and easy to get into without pushing the envelope technologically. That's a really big model for success when it comes to handhelds. The success, at least in the GameBoy days, was 100% hardware.

>>1686998
>Why did nobody ever beat Nintendo in this field?
Games matter more than number of buttons?

>>1687638
I don't see why you couldn't. Somebody would have to scan the actual screens in since the art was printed onto the LCD rather than stored as memory. The game code and sound should be retrievable as a ROM dump just like any cartridge game.

I think I've seen some "emulated" recreations of various handhelds from that era. The games were so simple people just reprogrammed them from scratch rather than literally emulate them.

>>1687707
A common misconception. In actuality, the number of buttons is the driving factor behind game design. More buttons = more complex gameplay = more fun.

>>1687713
PC gaming suddenly makes sense. What has more buttons than a keyboard?

why is the GP32 not on your list, OP? that thing rocked!

>>1687717
>tfw the N64 was the first, and only, console to have earned the respect of the Master Race

>>1687717
>tfw when the N64 was the first, and only, console to have earned the respect of the Master Race thanks to it's controller

>>1687672
I'd guess something like a SNES with higher resolution, no color restrictions, no restrictions on the number or size of sprites, virtually no limit on the file size of game assets or the overall size of the game, access the shaders and other modern features, etc... Not really much point in excluding 3D, though, since it's literally free on modern GPUs and you can get some really awesome effects by treating a 2D game as a series of planes in 3D space, as well as by mixing 2D and 3D assets in games.

Of course, at that point, isn't it essentially just any modern game console? A developer could do a completely 2D game on the PS4 if they really wanted to.

I admit it'd be cool to have a sort of modernized "retro" console with developers producing games that have gameplay reminiscent of old 8/16 bit games, but the market would be so niche I don't see it happening. You could achieve the same thing by developing for the PC and going for a retro flavor like all those indie devs try to do.

>>1687717

>>1686998
>Perfect is the enemy of good.

you make sacrifice when technology dictates for the sake of giving what consumers want, and fulfill a dedicated role: Portable gaming.

such requires
1. acceptable battery life
2. acceptable selection of games
3. acceptable size and weight

Nintendo always meets or even greatly exceeds these standards, and thus...always wins.

>>1688223

Incorrect. My PC keyboard also has a 17key numberpad, 4 arrow keys, home end insert delete etc.

Although that controller is awesome, I had something very similar for the Dreamcast back when I played PSO too much

>>1687017

Pokemon was at the end of the Game boys life. The killer app was Tetris.

Simplicity and battery life.

>>1687713
It's more like a bell curve skewed to the left.

>>1688305

How are the axis of that graph labelled?

>>1687656
Yeah, my OG Gameboy's screen is all sorts of ass now. It has a couple of lines of dead pixels, on top of being blurry, scratched up, and dim as hell. Not in good shape at all, even though it still technically works.

Now, my Pocket, that nigga's still rockin' and rollin' like it's 1998.

>>1687768
>developers producing games that have gameplay reminiscent of old 8/16 bit games

WayForward sorta does this, but at the expense of their games being more about presentation than content and their games being INCREDIBLY derivative of older games.

And that console will be a success ONLY if the games must be programmed entirely in assembly. Being faced with limitations forces you to be creative, and with fewer limitations in place, you will have to skew what the developers intended.

>>1688297
Indeed. If anything, Pokemon was the Gameboy Color's killer app, despite not actually being a Color game.

>>1688223
>japanese keyboard

*DROOL*

Extra thumb buttons, I soooo want one of those!

>>1688223
I think I saw that a long time ago in a magazine or something. Wasn't it meant for that one online GC rpg or something?

>>1688557
Yeah, the GC port of Phantasy Star Online

>>1687717
That's why the keyboard is a better controller in general. The large amount of keys provide plenty of freedom to developers and users alike.

It's always been held back by the lack of analog input and the fact it is not hand-held, though.

>>1688223
That looks surprisingly comfy on the lap. It was made for phantasy star online, right? Those analog buttons seem actually usable.

It still has less keys than the typical keyboard, by the way. Don't forget about the numpad and the home/end key cluster.

>>1687757
How?

N64 has 6 face buttons and 2 shoulder buttons, plus the Z "third" shoulder button, a start button, dpad, and analog stick.

The Dualshock has 4 face buttons, 4 shoulder buttons, start and select buttons, a dpad, and two analog sticks which double as buttons when pressed.

>>1687757
Nintendofag pls.

Also, the Dreamcast had its own mouse and keyboard.

>>1688697
The Jaguar actually had another controller with EVEN MORE buttons.

>>1688676
>It's always been held back by the lack of analog input

LOLWUT

>>1688725
Yeah, keyboards have no analog input, which are useful in a multitude of games.

You even posted the perfect example.

>>1688725
The left-hand knob was for left-right aiming in doom

>>1687757
You should be embarrassed for making such an untrue, shitty post.

The N64 controller is the worst pile of shit ever, and the N64 itself was responsible for shitty style over substance games AND horrible controlled Console FPS clusterfuck.

Basically the N64 was a big part of the downfall of console gaming to the point that it is today, which is what SHOULD be dead but isn't thanks to kids that still have this horrible nostalgia for the shitty N64 and believe games like this are actually good when they are not.

>>1687757
WTF, how could you think that?

>>1687757
>>1688771

>>1688771
>>1688776

>>1687757
>>1688771
>>1688781
Really?

>>1688750
>N64 itself was responsible for shitty style over substance games

Could you elaborate on this? I'm not supporting this >>1687757 anon, but I'd still like to know.

>>1687757
Uh, no.

>>1688789

Don't feed the troll, stupid.

>>1687757
Mustard race reporting in!

I've played plenty of cross platform games and even console style PC games, and you know what ... I can't remember playing any of those numerous N64 ports!

>>1686998
What exactly does 'Options' mean?

>>1688838
>console style PC games
>shitty badly optimized lazy late ports with horrible support for anything but a 360 pad

Because everyone else just focuses on their stuff being more powerful than what Nintendo has out but never bother to get decent support with the games.

>>1688857
They trail behind the portable and fire when it fires.

>>1687652
I think the 3DS is still more of a children's toy because of the game library. if you look at the games available on IOS (and Android, because that's where IOS games wander off to, eventually) there is some high art stuff on there! Its not as easy to get a game on IOS as it is Steam, but it is apparently a hell of a lot easier than getting it on the 3DS, because that is the first stop for quite a lot of indie developers

>>1687706
true true!
the gameboy was hardly a technical marvel. Even today, compare a 3DS screen to any smartphone screen and cringe. It is clear to anybody who thinks hard enough that Nintendo is making money by keeping hardware costs low. and really, who is the competition forcing them to innovate? The Vita is chasing a different market: young teens to young adults. the iPhone and Android phones are microcomuters, not game systems. Nintendo is free to do whatever they please.

however, do not discredit the awesome power of Pokemon. if Game Freak were to break it off with Nintendo (they would have to murder a few people to do that...) and drop Pokemon on IOS, 3DS sales would end, full stop. Nintendo are absolutely nothing without their games

>>1689275
I can't tell if this is bait or not, I'm too sleepy.

>>1689296
So basically, they dominate where it really matters, games, right?

>>1689341
Seems more like a well-meaning idiot.

>>1688857
start, select, pause, home, volume

>>1689341
>>1689358
what I mean by high art games.

if they have high-minded games like this, or Sword Brothers EP, on 3DS, feel free to correct me

>>1689424
Sword & Sworcery is by no means "high art" compared to any other game out there.

>>1689629
Not that guy, but agreed. Way too try hard.

>>1688943
360 pad? What the shit? Just look at the 4 previous pictures if you're too stupid to infer likely implied context any other way, /v/ brat!

>>1689424
Not sure what to tell you, but that image looks awful to me as a fan of isometric games

>>1689629
That's not Swords and Sorcery

>>1688784
I had one of these! Terrible d-pad, the rest was ok.

Because it has the best games, the sony handhelds are only good for obscure japanese games that nobody will ever release in Europe/US

I think sony achieved that. The ds sucks.

But mainly cause a handheld has the console as a background, and the nintendo library was huge

Man I fucking hate the game gear

>>1690089
If the DS sucks, the PSP and VITA are solid waste.

>>1687458
I got my psp and my ds at the same timeish. I've since replaced the psp, my ds is still going strong.

The psp is delicate because the disk enclosure and the screen.
the only thing remotely flimsy about a ds is the hinge.

>>1690143
And the left shoulder. I and several friends have had problems with our respective DS's left shoulder buttons.
Some have had broken hinges.
Others have had left speaker sounds stop working.
Most have had a broken left shoulder button. It's easily repairable, but it still happens for some reason. Never the right. Always the left.

>>1687458
I accidentally threw my psp down a full flight of stairs onto a hardwood floor. It turned off, opened up, and spat the UMD like 15 feet away. Picked it up, put the UMD back in, turned it on, and it worked perfectly fine. Still does.

I also have a friend who dropped the big ass piece of rebar that we kept in hands reach at the gas station we worked at at the time on the screen and there was a small scratch but very small and no damage besides that.

Thing was an absolute beast.

>>1686998

Nintendo is frugal with their tech so they went for stuff that would save more on battery at the expense of lower graphic/color quality.

It was still good enough to look nice but also didn't consume batteries like a whore in a cock factory.

Also anyone else notice Nintendo really loves some vertical design in their handhelds vs. the competition always going with more horizontal designs.

Wonder if that plays in to their dominance at all.

>>1690168

Now you mention it, my DS phat has a dodgy left shoulder button.

My 3DS however, has had many accidents but is still fine

>>1687109
it also survived a nuke

>>1688697
>>1688709
Anon said "earned the respect."

Nobody in the world has ever or will ever respect the Jaguar.

>>1688776
Horrible.

>>1686998
>pic
>replies
This isn't a /vr/ thread.

>>>/v/

>>1691941

There's that 1 guy who likes the Lynx. Even he probably doesn't respect the Jaguar

>>1691941
He also said because of the controller. Because it has so many buttons. The joke was that it had "more buttons than a keyboard".

Read the entire conversation.

>>1692271

Stop bringing "reading comprehension" into this, were busy taking digs at the Jaguar!!!

although that one Aliens game was kinda good

>>1688776
>those shitty gravis pads
i have the sudden urge to play some commander keen

>>1692271
lel, passive-aggressiveness!

Just assume that I've read the entire conversation anon, as a courtesy. So as a challenge to both the "Nintendofag" and the post you just replied to, you think the Jaguar earned the respect of Mustard Race because of the number of buttons on the controller? Clearly, I don't.

>>1688750
>>1688789

If anything, the N64 was responsible for making unbearable framerates to vaguely improve graphics into the norm that we have today. It says a lot when the "most advanced" N64 game, Conker, had to run at 280*200 at 20 FPS, while launch era PS1 games like Tekken ran at 320x240 at 60FPS. The N64 had more raw power than the PS1, yet the N64 was such an ass backwards machine, there was no way to make anything better than Mario 64.

N64 was the patient zero of the disease now colloquially known as "consolitis".

>>1692528

Oh LOOK! It's this shitposter again!

>>1692623

Please, don't confuse him with me. Also, this conversation isn't /vr/, as it deals with PC. And they still make them.

>>>/v/