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This. In Japan, the home video game market was just getting started during the "crash" and the European market was practically unharmed since home computers like the C64 and Speccy were favored over game consoles at the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Breetai
Home computers or not, there was no console (or arcade) crash in Europe to correspond to those of North America, so had consoles been big in Europe, the only affect would have been a reduction in US developed software (albeit perhaps less than historically since EU demand might keep interest up somewhat).Quote:
Originally Posted by ApolloBoy
Strong arcade activity in Japan and Europe was part of what kept the home game markets healthy, and the crash of the US arcade market (independently but virtually simultaneously with the console market) made recovery of the home game market touch . . . and also limited activity of computer game sales. (had Arcades stayed strong and only consoles crashed, computer gaming may have taken on a much stronger arcade-port scene, perhaps also persisting more in mainstream gaming along consoles in the late 80s in the US -ie well before mid 90s PC gaming brought home computers back into the mainstream games scene)
Plus, Nintendo didn't even "revive" the US market. It recovered on its own (Atari's sales with the 2600 picked up months before NES sales/interest were anything significant -2600 sales picked up strongly in mid 1985, to the point where Atari Corp couldn't ramp production up fast enough to meed holiday sales demands; OTOH, nintendo's 1985 NY test was viewed as a failure by market analysts, and not until their expanded test markets in spring of 1986 -along with the release of SMB and the bare bones Control Deck bundle- did Nintendo become a significant player on the market)Quote:
Originally Posted by Breetai
Nintendo should get credit for reshaping the market . . . for better and worse (worse obviously including the horrible monopolistic policies -both in US and Japan), but they certainly didn't save the US market from video games becoming extinct.
You mean video games didn't start in 1983? Next you'll be telling me that movies didn't start in 1977 with the release of Star Wars.
History doesn't remember who was right, it remembers who was left.
Japan has basically made itself irrelevant in gaming. Aside from a few choice franchises, it's been rehashing the same shit over and over for years. American companies have taken over, but unless they do something different, they'll go the same way of their Japanese counterparts. How many military FPS and sandbox games can the industry stand?
Change is always good, and Japan just realized it too late. The entire gaming industry over there is in a creative quagmire. They don't even rule RPGs anymore, aside from Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter (if you even call that an RPG).
That's a good one.Quote:
Originally Posted by JDB
The Japanese are largely nationalists. They rewrite their textbooks significantly and flat out lie to a lot of students about their history to impose a sense of Japanese dominance. Example: many Japanese people don't believe the Rape of Nanking really happened.
Selective ignorance is an important part of Japanese culture. So seeing something like this really isn't surprising.
I didnt even see an Atari Jaguar on there. Fuck Japan!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's the same reason it was (and is) far easier for Japanese companies to market their wares internationally than it is for other countries to market things in Japan. (unless perhaps they localize/rebrand the product through a prominent Japanese domestic company)Quote:
Originally Posted by Nunzio
Hell, I wonder if Sega's American origins had some impact on their difficulties in Japan. (probably not much given their booming arcade market . . . probably other factors -namely Nintendo's monopolistic policies perpetuated by the lack of litigation that would have been seen in the US or Europe -another reason it's difficult to market in Japan, their monopolist-friendly economic regulation)
Asking that is like asking how many sidecrolling platform/adventure/run n' gun/beat-em-up games could the industry take in the late 80s to mid 90s . . . or how many graphic adventure and flight/space sim games PC gamers could take in the late 80s to early/mid 90s. (or how many 2D space shooters could the industry take in the late 70s to mid 80s)Quote:
Originally Posted by Melf
The game industry has trends for certain genres to be popular for long periods . . . and even if you look at FPSs being hugely popular for longer than almost any other genre, the sub-genres and themes of FPSs have changed significantly in that time. (you still see a few sci-fi and fantasy themed FPSs around, but not anywhere near the percentage of the late 90s and early 2000s -ie Doom, Hexen, Blood, Duke 3D, Quake, Unreal, Half Life, Halo, etc) Realistic/millitary (historical and modern) themed FPSs have become a lot more popular this generation, more so for the modern end most recently.
Sadly, that is completely accurate in my experiences...Quote:
Originally Posted by Nunzio