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/vr/ - Retro Games

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2448617 No.2448617 [Reply] [Original]

Came out in '82, allowing 3 years for the price to fall prior to the '85 America release of the NES

Assume it launches initially just in America and Britain for $199 and came with Mayhem in Monsterland as a pack in somehow.

>> No.2448635

>>2448617
No. The C64 had a very healthy space in the consumer PC market. The success of the NES had a lot to do with marketing, branding, and quality control as much as it did pure luck. I'll mention again quality control, Nintendo's notoriously iron fisted grip over what could be released on the console. This was a major factor in what brought down Atari, the huge amount of crap games. A similar problem certainly existed, and still does, on home computers.

It's an interesting what if, but Nintendo really was a unique situation -- right time/place.

>> No.2448639

>>2448617
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64_Games_System

>> No.2448645

>>2448639

Alright, you did it. You blew my mind. A joystick though? Fucking really?

>> No.2448651

>>2448645
The C64's main input was a joystick, so it carried over; if you read the article, you'll see that was the least of the system's problems.

>> No.2448654

>>2448617
So in this weird 1983 alternative universe you want to release a 600 dollar computer as a console for 1/3 the price and the pack in a game that rips off game play and design elements from Nintendo games of the future? Well then yes, I'm sure it would be a success.

>> No.2448656

>>2448639
The problem is that it came out in 1990. Had it been available in 1982 it would have done a lot better and more games would have been made with it in mind.

>> No.2448660
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2448660

>>2448656
>releasing a console right before the crash
>it would have done a lot better

>> No.2448661

>>2448635
I don't see how not being subject to mafia like structures is a bad thing. Nobody is forcing you to buy or play bad games. Other mediums manage to survive without a Nintendo seal of approval that tells you little more than that the game will run on your system.

>> No.2448683

My family had an Atari 800 which shared a bunch of floppy games with Commodore 64. The problem is our game library was almost entirely Japanese. If it weren't for Irem, Taito, Konami, Nintendo, and Namco it would have been a glorified Asteroids machine.

>> No.2448689

>>2448660
The crash is overrated. In some points the C64 was one of the causes for the crash.

>> No.2449295

>>2448661
>I don't see how not being subject to mafia like structures is a bad thing.
"not being subject to mafia like structure" is exactly how all the shovelware released on Atari KILLED the industry. And exactly why Nintendo came up with the "official seal of quality". Just like redesigning the Famicom to look like a fucking VHS player, the "official seal of quality" and everything it stood for was about instilling confidence in retailers and consumers after all that shovelware KILLED the industry.

>Other mediums manage to survive without a Nintendo seal of approval that tells you little more than that the game will run on your system.
I'm going to assume by "medium" you're talking about "PC", in which case you're entirely forgetting that "PC" was a very niche medium, of which very few households owned and was mostly limited to businesses & educational markets. And, has no guidelines because they don't pay licensing fees to write DOS code.
Because you sure was fuck are not talking about SEGA, who emulated Nintento's practices to the point that they expected to be paid the identically for licensing fees and operate under the same production guidelines.

>> No.2449308

>>2449295
>I'm going to assume by "medium" you're talking about "PC"
I was thinking more about books, movies, music etc. A huge market where people are somehow capable of deciding for themselves whether something is worth it or not.

What killed the industry was everybody jumping ship and selling their stock as soon as it seemed that the market couldn't sustain unlimited growth and the growing competition by far more cable home computers.

>> No.2449327

>>2449308
Game consoles are fundamentally different than music and video players. To say nothing of books.

>> No.2449351

ITT: People discussing the 80s who obviously weren't there for it.

Also anybody want to trade a CD32 for my 64GS? It only had half as big a number so you're obviously making out like a bandit

>> No.2449358

>>2448617
If it came out with a good controller (more like a traditional gamepad, though they did not exist back then so this would be hard), had a hi-fi look and good quality control, and high level of marketing, then it could've had a great chance.

The problem was that those are the exact things that Commodore sucked at, which eventually made them bankrupt. They managed to release some god tier hardware at awesome price points, but honestly, as a company, they made so many bad choices.

And don't forget that all they would have are western developers, and if it was a direct competitor to the NES, then ports would be difficult since Nintendo specifically had an anti-competitor policy (companies got around this by licensing out their titles to either sub-companies, or different developers).

And to be honest, I think the C64 hardware is not well suited for a console. The video chip was awesome but had limited resolution and colours, and the SID was absolutely great but only had 3 channels of sound. Not many C64 games had both music and sound effects playing at the same time.

>> No.2449380

>>2449327
So different that concepts like shovelware don't apply to them?

>> No.2449395

I wonder why they thought their console was a good idea when they released it. I wonder why they didn't just go with a 16 bit architecture that was backwards compatible with their 8 bit library.

>> No.2449450

>>2449380
To play games you need to buy an expensive device that can only play expensive games made for that specific device, and you probably won't know in advance if they're any good. Home video games were also at the time a new thing unlike music and movies.

>> No.2449468

>>2449450
How was that different from VHS/Betamax/LD/CD etc?

>> No.2449481

>>2449468
Movies have been around since the early 20th century and could be seen in cinemas and on TV. The value of home video was obvious, and VHS/Betamax was just a format war.

>> No.2449484

>>2449481
Games could be played in arcades.

>> No.2449489

>>2449484
Home console ports weren't necessarily the same as the arcade one, or any good. And not all home console games were arcade ports.

>> No.2449508

>>2449468
You can hook two VHS/Betamaxes together and get a near 1:1 copy. You could even copy the LD to VHS if desired.

Not to say piracy didn't exist back then, but it wasn't as cheap as covering a slot on a tape you don't care about and taping over it.

>> No.2449531

>>2449489
>>2449508
Most movies released on home video back then were cropped to fit in 4:3 screen resolution. Letterboxing movies to preserve their aspect ratio wasn't even common until the 90's.

>> No.2449536

>>2449508
On computers it was. Even for Nintendo you could use the FDS.

>> No.2449552

>>2449489
You had direct to video releases in the 80s.

>> No.2449624

>>2449536
Well yeah. To the best of my knowledge there have been cart copying devices for as long as there has been consoles, but the initial cost of getting one and getting the media for it had to have damn near negated the money actually saved.

>> No.2449913

>>2449308
>I was thinking more about books, movies, music etc.
Completely different markets, with a longer history of established success.

>A huge market where people are somehow capable of deciding for themselves whether something is worth it or not.
Yeah, no. Publishers decide for you what you're of reading/watching. Not til ebooks could you get around the iron claws of a publisher. Just like the music industry had all of the power to rape their clients til self-publishing online became a thing. The movie industry is about the freest form of entertainment, due to a strong number of independent film makers existing far longer than the ones now existing in the music & book publishing markets.

>> No.2449940

>>2449624
>the initial cost of getting one
They were around $150 in 1997, when I bought my Wildcard DX.

>getting the media
it's just floppies. I wish you would quit talking nonsense all over this board, most of the stuff you say is wrong or misinformed.

>> No.2450456

>>2449913
You say that as if video game publishers don't exist.
Truly independent games where the author would sell ziplock backs with a floppy and a copied cover existed but they weren't the rule.