Best console by generation polls

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

I'd have thought the European market sold a lot more than that.

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Oh no dude, if that the problem then no way.

I know the Euro market very well, 3-4 million Amiga sales is very realistic. the 16-bit computer era was much smaller than the 8-bit computer era (there was much more encroachment from consoles), the prices didn't drop as fast, and the 8-bits had longer lifespans (Spectrum and C64 still had decent, though small sales in Britain until like 1991)

Spectrum sold ~5 million in Europe (breakdown probably ~4 million Britain and 1 million Spain), and Amstrad sold around 3 million (closer to 3 way tie between Britain/France/Spain), Mega Drive sold ~3 million in Britain, and SNES sold a little over 1 million.

In the end both Mega Drive and Spectrum were more popular here than Amiga, but Amiga was more popular than Amstrad, and probably SNES, as a guess I'd say UK sales are probably somewhere in the region of 1.5 million

Everything written in the Euro breakdown I posted earlier correlates with what I've seen of the Euro countries.

The source I posted does actually have a quote from someone working at Commodore Germany, who states the Worldwide sales at being a little over 5 million total, so the Reimer graphs could be 1 million odd undertracked (worst case scenario).

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

That's far too similar for a game with the complexity of mario.

Firstly, you'd need to generally re-do most/all of the graphics and perhaps change the artistic style/theme of the game, give it a different story (in the manual), perhaps add more animation/detail than the original, and then make the actual changes to the gameplay:

Add new level designs (though similar general style/mechanics), and change the attacks and power ups, change enemy AI, make enemies take different numbers of hits and have different vulnerabilities, have significant different patterns of movement (part of AI) and different maneuvering abilities (ie they are not restricted to the same types of movement as the original game), and change the boss mechanics. (ie number of bosses, types of boss battles, number of unique bosses/battles, etc) Not to mention different vulnerabilities of the player to attacks/damage. (and different numbers of hits/lives) And different scoring mechanisms.

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Different environments are not applicable to most Space Invaders clones (they're mostly set in space, or simple flat ground on a desert or something), and Space Invaders games do not have level designs to change (again they're generally all flat ground or space) so that isn't applicable to them either.

So as I said before, doing the same thing for Super Mario Bros would be

• Change Enemy Behaviour
• Change firing style/rate
• Change difficulty
• And yes, you're right change character and enemy sprites, and new bosses could be added

Nothing else is applicable, you'd keep the same level layouts and the same environments (that's what happened with SI clones), which would lead to a game with less differences than the average Sonic the Hedgehog hack (which at least has entirely new level layouts).

The complexity of platform games gives more freedom for differentiation than Space Invaders clones, with SI clones the developers were only changing three of four elements of the simple gameplay.

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Interesting. (that makes me wonder even more about Sega's management/marketing in the US -especially given news articles pointing to Sega spending MORE on ads than Nintendo that year -and either spending many times what Atari Corp did, unsurprisingly)

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I'm glad you brought this up as I've been reading the Ultimate History of Videogames the past few days and it contradicts some of the info you're laid out.

Everything I've read points to Sega having far less advertising budget than Nintendo (and a tiny US staff), the only time I've heard mention of them having more advertising is the year when Tonka took over (1988)

Secondly, Nintendo got ridiculously better retail distribution much earlier because they made a lucrative deal with Worlds of Wonder for distribution. Worlds of Wonder had the premier toy of the time which was selling out all over the US Teddy Ruxpin, retail was begging for stock, Worlds of Wonder had a huge sales team who had to sell NES to the retailers at the same showings of Ruxpin (and Laser tag). Effectively NES was forced through to sale in all major stores due to Ruxpin, after NES took off the stores started to take on Master System too (it looked like less of a risk by then)

So the NES got into most major stores, much faster than SMS, it was also sold by an experienced sales team, advertising budget wise NES was most probably better off too until Tonka.

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

Different environments are not applicable to most Space Invaders clones (they're mostly set in space, or simple flat ground on a desert or something), and Space Invaders games do not have level designs to change (again they're generally all flat ground or space) so that isn't applicable to them either.

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I was going beyond space invaders clones for that, and going into fixed shooters in general. (if you include Centepede or Missile-Command-like games, there's a fair bit more to consider -stylistically and gameplay wise)

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So as I said before, doing the same thing for Super Mario Bros would be

• Change Enemy Behaviour
• Change firing style/rate
• Change difficulty
• And yes, you're right change character and enemy sprites, and new bosses could be added

Nothing else is applicable, you'd keep the same level layouts and the same environments (that's what happened with SI clones), which would lead to a game with less differences than the average Sonic the Hedgehog hack (which at least has entirely new level layouts).

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A couple things:
if "difficulty" includes not only making the game harder or easier, but more complex variables like how you attack the enemies, how many hits you or the enemies could take, etc, than I more or less agree.

However, the level designs do change significantly in some cases . . . as far as they can in a fixed-screen shooter at least. (some games expand on the SI barrier mechanic, but many drop it in favor of a different gameplay style -including pretty much all the major arcade hits in that genre, like Galaxian and Galaga)

Given how intrinsically simple this genre is, having that number of changes is still huge. (there's not really much more that could be changed without shifting to a different type of shooter entirely)

And, hell, fixed-shooter type games are STILL fairly common in the case of simple DLC games on various platforms.

Also, by "level layout" do you mean actual level design (platform placement, etc), or just the general trend/style of level design. (ie you could have a very mario-esque game that didn't use any of the same levels, but did use a very similar style/pattern of level design -ie Super Mario World is far more like Mario 3 or Mario 1 than any Sonic game, though the levels are still totally different from those older games)

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The complexity of platform games gives more freedom for differentiation than Space Invaders clones, with SI clones the developers were only changing three of four elements of the simple gameplay.

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Yes, there's more you can change, that's the difference . . . especially if you don't add more/new features. (albeit some shooters did add new features, though many were modest -had more added things like end bosses or perhaps bombs/powerups it would certainly have expanded things a bit more; a few did push bosses, but few did anything powerup wise)

Still, only a segment of the games in '82 were even SI type shooters, many of the fixed shooters were more Missile command derived among other things. (and then the other sub-genres of shooters entirely)
And the shooter genre in general, while obviously the dominant single genre, didn't take up the majority of the games. (ie significantly less than 1/2 of new games were shooters -and many of the non-shooters were games/genres that were new to the system for that year -ie Pac-Man style games hadn't existed on the system prior to '82, neither had fixed or multi-screen platform games . . . flight/ground vehicle sim-like games had existed to a modest extent, but made a big leap in '82, etc)

Again, I think the problem was just too many games in general (good or bad, fresh or "more of the same"), not too many bad or too many of certain genres. All of that was primarily a distribution problem (leading to inflated market projections), hell the boom of shooters may have been skewed by that as well. (inaccurate figures for the sales/demand of certain games)

Many have argued that Atari's distribution flaws wouldn't have existed had Warner allowed Atari to use their record distribution channels for video games (an established, well managed, mature distribution network already targeting the home entertainment industry).

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I'm glad you brought this up as I've been reading the Ultimate History of Videogames the past few days and it contradicts some of the info you're laid out.

Everything I've read points to Sega having far less advertising budget than Nintendo (and a tiny US staff), the only time I've heard mention of them having more advertising is the year when Tonka took over (1988)

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Nintendo most definitely had FAR, FAR better management (in house marketing and 3rd party distributors), but the actual ad/marketing budgets I've seen covered in newspaper articles of 1986 point to Sega having somewhat higher spending (at least for that year) and Atari having a tiny fraction of either. (I need to find the articles again for the specific figures -iirc Atari was under 1 million though)

Money alone won't get you much, you need the management to back that up (either investing in building up internally or delegating to competent 3rd parties -the latter Sega did in Europe to large extent iirc).

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Secondly, Nintendo got ridiculously better retail distribution much earlier because they made a lucrative deal with Worlds of Wonder for distribution. Worlds of Wonder had the premier toy of the time which was selling out all over the US Teddy Ruxpin, retail was begging for stock, Worlds of Wonder had a huge sales team who had to sell NES to the retailers at the same showings of Ruxpin (and Laser tag). Effectively NES was forced through to sale in all major stores due to Ruxpin, after NES took off the stores started to take on Master System too (it looked like less of a risk by then)

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Don't forget Lazer Tag. (also very big from WoW at the time)

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So the NES got into most major stores, much faster than SMS, it was also sold by an experienced sales team, advertising budget wise NES was most probably better off too until Tonka.

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Yes, a lot of that was smart management . . . partnering with popular retailers, etc. (and there were plenty of others who Sega could have pushed deals with -Hasbro being a massive one)
It was the same thing with NEC . . . they needed to invest in building up internal marketing/management teams and talent and establishing solid distributors and advertising firms to work with.

Also, the market had already substantially revived (at least in key markets -like the east and west coast) before the NES really took off. 2600s started selling en masse again in mid/late 1985 whilst Nintendo had their flop in NY that fall. (seen as a failure by all industry experts/analysts at the time, and Nintendo was still seen as a nobody on the market durring the 1986 winter CES -in January) It was Atari's own sales that led to the harder push for the 7800's release. (though they'd already been readying it for release in mid 1985 -after the legal issues were finally resolved with Warner and GCC in early '85, but the 2600 sales in '85 undoubtedly spurred heavier investment in that project than otherwise)

It was their successful expanded test markets (in California, etc) in spring of '86 that led to Nintendo being taken seriously, and by then the 7800 was on the mass market (though not yet fully launched nationwide) and the SMS was being readied for market.
By late Summer, all 3 consoles had fully launched nationally and were roughly seen as equals by market experts. (the 1986 holiday season changed all that though, with Nintendo's massive success pulling them into a definitive lead that was expanded and solidified into a monopoly over the market by the end of the following year)

Here's an interesting article from June 1986:
http://tnca.myrmid.com/art9.htm

Among other things, it's interesting to note the prices listed. I'm not sure how those actually compare to fall/winter 1986 prices, but at that point at least, the Master System was substantially more expensive than the NES (the Control Deck was already priced at $99 vs $150 for the SMS -vs $140-150 for the deluxe set at the time). The 7800 thus had only a moderate price advantage over the NES at the time (it launched at $80 SRP -or 79.9x, etc), though in mid 80s dollars, $20 cheaper was a bigger deal than today. (though there was also the similar -or greater- difference in software pricing for Atari vs Nintendo -not sure about Sega)

These are the only relevant sections I've seen in The Ultimate History of Videogames (though I have actually noticed some pretty glaringly silly mistakes in the book, but I'm hoping these were minor taken-for-granted oversights)

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"The marketing arm behind Sega's American release was considerably smaller than Nintendo's. Formed in April 1986, Sega's consumer products division consisted of two men, Bruce Lowry and Bob Harris, working with a couple of administrators out of a small room in the back of the company's coin-operated games offices....... Harris, who had come from the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, helped create the packaging for the Master System."

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Now we know who to blame for that packaging :D

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"Although the Master System was not as widely distributed as the NES, it could be found in most major cities across the country in time for the holidays."

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"Nintendo had several advantages right from the start. The marketing clout Nintendo received from its association with Worlds of Wonder opened doors to retailers, which remained closed to Sega. Anyone who wanted to sell Teddy Ruxpin and Laser Tag, including Sears and Toys "R" Us, was going to hear about the Nintendo Entertainment System."

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By the time Sega had sold 100,000 Master Systems, Nintendo had already sold more than 2 million NES units and the gap was widening. Nintendo had better market awareness and more money for advertising.

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While we had gotten into all the retailers they (Nintendo) did, we simply did not have the resources to compete against Nintendo's huge marketing budget, and the decision was made to look for a partner. We hooked up with Tonka, and they took over the distribution and put a tremendous amount of money into marketing dollars. They put over $30 million into marketing. - Bruce Lowry

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Interestingly if SMS really did only sell like 100,000 in the US by ~the mid point of 1987 (this should've been when NES was at ~2 million), and Tonka took over in 88' then the sales that SMS did have in the US must be mainly due to Tonka, and not Sega.

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In regards to Commodore -

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"Commodore did its usual Jack Tramiel stunt - not paying the bill. If your guys are dumb enough to keep shipping him product, he lets them keep shipping. Pretty soon Commodore owes them so much money that they run out of cash flow and they find themselves out of business. At that point, Commodore comes in and buys the company for a song, then forgives its own debt." -AI Alcorn, former vice president, Atari

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The preceding, and a whole load of other accusations I've run into indicate that the C64 wasn't simply built on manufacturing efficiency (ie Commodore's manufacturing efficiency itself was possibly built on them being a little crooked, allowing them to put companies like MOS into financial difficulty and then buy them up)

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"At the January 1984 Consumer Electronics Show, Commodore posted an enormous back-lit sign boasting sales of more than two million VIC-20s and one million Commodore 64s."

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This has C64 sales even lower than the Reimer graphs (unless this quote is in regards to US sales alone)

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I also found this quite interesting as a difference between US/UK

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"In the early 1980s, computer game makers still sold their games in plastic bags with labels. Hawkins found the situation laughable and proceeded to apply his marketing wizardry to revolutionize the way computer games were packaged. Hawkins referred to his packaging as "album covers." Album covers were custom-made boxes with professional art and the designers' names placed prominently on the label."

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Were Electronic Arts really one of the first companies to properly package computer games in the US? Britain was definitely doing this during 1982 at the very latest from what I've seen.

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

These are the only relevant sections I've seen in The Ultimate History of Videogames (though I have actually noticed some pretty glaringly silly mistakes in the book, but I'm hoping these were minor taken-for-granted oversights)

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There's a lot wrong with that book. It's mainly good for quotes (from interviews and documents), but even those are problematic due to lack of cross-checking.

It's a good book in some respects, but it's a real shame Kent didn't go further . . . especially since there's no substitute for many companies/events he addressed.
The inaccuracies on the Atari stuff (or anything crossing over into Atari stuff -and several home computer companies) have been largely pointed out by Marty Goldberg and Curt Vendel (and all that and more should be covered in their books), but I can only guess how far reaching those problems are for other areas of the book.

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Now we know who to blame for that packaging :D

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I think David Rosen may have been directly involved with SoA at the time too. (was he the president?)

It should be noted that Atari Corp, for a time (certainly for the first year the 7800 was out -not sure about late '87 onward) had a single person for their entire Entertainment Division management staff: Michael Katz. (managing all the marketing, distribution, software production/licensing, etc) In fact, it was Katz who requested the creation of the Entertainment Division as a condition of his joining Atari Corp in early/mid 1985. (he was brought in just after the 7800 issues were resolved with Warner and GCC)

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Interestingly if SMS really did only sell like 100,000 in the US by ~the mid point of 1987 (this should've been when NES was at ~2 million), and Tonka took over in 88' then the sales that SMS did have in the US must be mainly due to Tonka, and not Sega.

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Yes, though that's assuming the ~2 million figure in the US is accurate as well.

Not sure about any Sega figures, but from the Atari Corp documents Curt posted, the 7800 had sold just over 286k units by the end of 1986 (that's calendar year, not fiscal year), and approximately 1.4 million by the end of 1987. (total, not for '87 alone)
It's also interesting to note that Atari Corp was selling 7800s for roughly $31 each to retailers in 1987 (and $22 in 1986), at least going by gross revenue figures corresponding to those sales. (definitely not profits) Though that's not including added distribution/shipping overhead paid by retailers. (so not quite as big a gap from the $80 SRP)

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In regards to Commodore -

The preceding, and a whole load of other accusations I've run into indicate that the C64 wasn't simply built on manufacturing efficiency (ie Commodore's manufacturing efficiency itself was possibly built on them being a little crooked, allowing them to put companies like MOS into financial difficulty and then buy them up)

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I've seen that before too, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. (the definitive book on Commodore is On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore , which Curt and Marty vouched for, but I haven't read yet; there's also a few others like "The Home Computer Wars" which I'm not sure of the accuracy of and I've only read part of)

From what I do know, CBM didn't pull that buy-out routine very many times (unlike Alcorn's quote implied). In fact, the only specific occurrence of that was with MOS Technologies, and even that may have been more legitimate than some have claimed. They definitely bought them out, but I'm not sure how underhanded any of that was. (regardless of how it was achieved, buying MOS was certainly a brilliant move . . . it didn't have to be MOS either, but any relatively small chip fab from the period would have been similarly attractive for vertical integration -though MOS added some specific talent that largely contributed to CBM entering the computer market . . . but management ended up squandering that talent to a fair extent -they could have managed R&D a good bit better, perhaps spun off part of the division for more of a think-tank type environment -that's actually one thing Warner-Atari actually DID do in the form of the Advanced Technology Division, though that fell apart during the crash)

On that note: Warner/Atari was in a position by the beginning of the 80s where they could have looked towards buying up/merging with a smaller chip fab too . . . Synertek comes to mind. (a nice, small company that had been partnered with Atari since the PONG console days -they were a major manufacturer for the 2600 as well -both custom chips and 2nd sourced MOS parts -RIOT and 6507- and did some production of A8 components as well iirc) Synertek ended up being bought by Honeywell around 1980 and declined heavily during the video game crash. It ended up being shut down in 1985. (would have been really interesting if Atari had bought Synertek instead . . . even with the Crash and sale to Tramiel, it very well may have become part of Atari Corp -which in turn may have opened up significant possibilities for Atari Corp's products, both for R&D and manufacturing -vertical integration wouldn't only mean more cost effective products, but also faster turn-arounds for prototyping since they'd have direct control over fabs; or, prior to the sale, such vertical integration could have meant more competitive pricing -and/or higher profits- of Atari's computers and consoles, less extreme losses during the crash, accelerated R&D, etc -R&D for new products, and new/improved/cost reduced variants of existing products)

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I also found this quite interesting as a difference between US/UK

Were Electronic Arts really one of the first companies to properly package computer games in the US? Britain was definitely doing this during 1982 at the very latest from what I've seen.

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No, plenty of computer game (and application) publishers used proper boxes, including Atari, Commodore, and several 3rd parties. (including stuff for Tandy and Apple computers)

It was only small start-up publishers (and self-publishing programmers) who tended to use the plastic baggie method. (Origin Systems's founders are known for that -the original Ultima was first distributed that way iirc . . . a game also notable for being coded in BASIC; I think Infocom and Sierra may have started out with "baggie" publishing as well)

And, obviously, such publishing was limited to tapes and disks . . . such publishers wouldn't be capable of producing cart games. ;)

On the note of 70s/early 80s computer game publishing: several publishers used REALLY big boxes, but not just for show . . . they also tended to have full-sized (at least as big as an average magazine) manuals, often with full-page artwork. Atari did that both for cart and disk (possibly tape) games, though they also had a number of games released in VCS cart sized boxes. (which were still big enough to fit 5.25" disks) Many of those big boxes (while tall and wide) were quite thin (all of Atari's were), similar in thickness to Atari cart boxes.

Atari's big-box games had manuals with holes punched for a standard 3-ring binder:
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6013/...6a0046a7d0.jpg
Atari boxes and manuals have a very high quality look and feel to them.

Maganvox Odyssey 2 boxes were also sometimes quite elaborate.

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Not sure about any Sega figures, but from the Atari Corp documents Curt posted, the 7800 had sold just over 286k units by the end of 1986 (that's calendar year, not fiscal year), and approximately 1.4 million by the end of 1987. (total, not for '87 alone)
It's also interesting to note that Atari Corp was selling 7800s for roughly $31 each to retailers in 1987 (and $22 in 1986), at least going by gross revenue figures corresponding to those sales. (definitely not profits) Though that's not including added distribution/shipping overhead paid by retailers. (so not quite as big a gap from the $80 SRP)

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Correction, that's 1.6 million by the end of 1987:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MattM...1986__1990.php

I was being lazy and did a rough estimate of the '87 sales (since '87 and '88 don't have the totals tallied in the documents and I hadn't manually counted myself . . . and couldn't find the post listing the complete count on Atariage). It's cool to have neatly arranged graphs like that.

Also, if the SMS really did launch at $150 (and hold at that for a significant period), that would have been another substantial strike against it vs the NES. (with the $99 control deck with SMB pack-in with 2 controllers) That's considerably more significant than the price advantage the Genesis had over the SNES in 1991. Albeit I'm not sure how SMS game prices compared. (NES was $22-40, 7800 was under $15)

So, compared to the SMS, the NES had: better advertising, better distribution, a better pack-in, arguably better software support (though really not by that much initially), a substantially lower price point, and possibly cheaper software.

You know a thread is coming to an end when Kool Kitty starts talking to himself. ;)

I can't even do it anymore. Whenever I see long as post like that I just skip them. To much information to take in.

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Correction, that's 1.6 million by the end of 1987:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MattM...1986__1990.php

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That indicates the figures as being shipped to retail though, so the actual sold amount may be lower.

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Albeit I'm not sure how SMS game prices compared. (NES was $22-40, 7800 was under $15)

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The early prices seem to essentially be Card games $20 Cartridges $30, but by the end of 1987 I've seen some cartridges going for $40

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Also, if the SMS really did launch at $150 (and hold at that for a significant period), that would have been another substantial strike against it vs the NES.

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I think this came up once before, and that the SMS dropped in price fairly quickly, there's certainly adverts from November 87' at latest which have the SMS at between $80 and $100 depending on the shop.

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

So, compared to the SMS, the NES had: better advertising, better distribution, a better pack-in, arguably better software support (though really not by that much initially), a substantially lower price point, and possibly cheaper software.

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I think the original NES pack-in's were Gyromite and Duck Hunt (not sure if they had different ones for different packs, but I think the core set didn't actually come with a game at all) in fact, there seems to be a lot of confusion online as to when Super Mario Bros actually came out in the US, most seem to agree that it was absent from the New York test market, whilst others are split between it being a late 1985 release or early 1986.

This newspaper article I just ran into seems to indicate that it was released in 1986, and by the way that they are talking about projected sales of the game for christmas 86', that it possibly still wasn't a pack in during that time.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...th+mario&hl=en

This newspaper article also indicates that the NES's cheap pack was sold without a game in Nov 86'

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...th+mario&hl=en

(unless of course you're arguing that Gyromite and Duck Hunt were superior pack-in's to Hang On and Safari Hunt, which I definitely disagree with)

I'm sure this is not the first time you guys hear this, but just fyi, if you want to be heard, keep it simple.

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Originally Posted by Clessy

I can't even do it anymore. Whenever I see long as post like that I just skip them. To much information to take in.

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Something to think about. ;)

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

That indicates the figures as being shipped to retail though, so the actual sold amount may be lower.

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The figures (units and revenue) are for annual sales after returns (and returns are specifically accounted for in the documents) . . . so the only sticking point would be for retailers who opted to retain/store unsold stock rather than returning unsold stock to Atari.

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I think this came up once before, and that the SMS dropped in price fairly quickly, there's certainly adverts from November 87' at latest which have the SMS at between $80 and $100 depending on the shop.

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That's interesting (though NES prices would need to be noted too), but also remember that first impressions do a lot of damange. Look at what happened with the Saturn for instance. (many people seem to remember it being far more expensive than the PSX even though they were priced equally for the majority of their market lives -ie from October of 1995 onward; hell, and that's even with the 32-bit market not really taking off in the US until 1996)

That and marketing: a low price won't help much if people don't know about it. (and in the US, you can't rely much on viral marketing either)

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I think the original NES pack-in's were Gyromite and Duck Hunt (not sure if they had different ones for different packs, but I think the core set didn't actually come with a game at all) in fact, there seems to be a lot of confusion online as to when Super Mario Bros actually came out in the US, most seem to agree that it was absent from the New York test market, whilst others are split between it being a late 1985 release or early 1986.

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Gyromite and Duck Hunt were the original pack-ins with the Deluxe Set during the test market. The Control Deck came with neither ROB nor the Zapper, but was pack-in with Super Mario Bros. (I believe they updated the deluxe set to include Mario in addition to Duck Hunt and Gyromite, plus there were the later sets with Zapper and Mario+DH and the Power Set with SMB+DH+World Class Track Meet and the Power Pad)

The introduction of the cheaper, simpler Control Deck set (along with the release of Mario -pack in or not) was a big part of what made Nintendo's early 1986 test market more successful than the dismal '85 NY test.

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This newspaper article I just ran into seems to indicate that it was released in 1986, and by the way that they are talking about projected sales of the game for christmas 86', that it possibly still wasn't a pack in during that time.

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The NES itself wasn't launched until September of 1986 (prior to that had been limited test markets, expanded test markets, but no national launch), but SMB was definitely released during spring of 1986.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...th+mario&hl=en

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This newspaper article also indicates that the NES's cheap pack was sold without a game in Nov 86'

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Huh . . . $100 price wouldn't make that lack of pack-in very attractive (vs $40-50 more getting you 2 games, ROB, and the zapper).
Was there even a basic SMS pack released in '86, or just the bigger bundle with the Phaser?

I wonder if there were special bundles added after the fact to include SMB (or other select games) with the purchase of the Control Deck. (prior to it being packed in the same box with the system) That sort of thing certainly happened numerous times with other consoles, though less so for actual transition to permanent pack-in. (far more cases for seasonal bundle options -like what Sega did in 1990 . . . though that was a deal for a free game on TOP of the pack-in Altered Beast)

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Originally Posted by QuickSciFi

I'm sure this is not the first time you guys hear this, but just fyi, if you want to be heard, keep it simple.



Something to think about. ;)

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They're mostly just talking to each other at this point anyway. A lot of the information is stuff a layman like myself has no use for so I sort of haze over when these tl;dr posts appear too.

Occasionally some interesting information in there though. I like coming here and learning new things.

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Originally Posted by Obviously

They're mostly just talking to each other at this point anyway. A lot of the information is stuff a layman like myself has no use for so I sort of haze over when these tl;dr posts appear too.

Occasionally some interesting information in there though. I like coming here and learning new things.

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Yeah, only a few people outside the discussion will probably take notice . . . though perhaps more over the years in searches. (I've read through a lot of old threads on several forums -Sega-16, AtariAge, AtariForum, among others- with some quite long-winded -often off-topic- discussions that were quite interesting and, often, enlightening)

It's those sort of threads that actually got me started posting on some of these forums. ;)

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Originally Posted by Obviously

They're mostly just talking to each other at this point anyway. A lot of the information is stuff a layman like myself has no use for so I sort of haze over when these tl;dr posts appear too.

Occasionally some interesting information in there though. I like coming here and learning new things.

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You just made me lmao. I needed that, thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Yeah, only a few people outside the discussion will probably take notice . . . though perhaps more over the years in searches. (I've read through a lot of old threads on several forums -Sega-16, AtariAge, AtariForum, among others- with some quite long-winded -often off-topic- discussions that were quite interesting and, often, enlightening)

It's those sort of threads that actually got me started posting on some of these forums. ;)

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Planting the seed. I hear ya. 'Nothing wrong with that.

Those huge conservations are the best part of this thread. I enjoyed reading it. I also refuse to believe kool kitty89 is only 22. That doesn't compute. ;)

Koolkitty hands-down makes Sega-16 the most informative forum ever! And let's not forget Chilly Willy and Thenewguy too! These guys know their stuff...

Don't let the long posts bring you down, there's a lot of informative stuff in there, wish I had the passion for knowledge these guys have!