Your personal hate in the gaming world.

[zetastrike]

Whoever invented region lockout. Wasn't it nintendo?

[Zoltor]

Developers that are under the impression that they own the product after they sell it.

They own the code, graphics, and such(aka design aspects of the product), but they do not own the product.

I have no idea where companies get this BS from, that they own the product, no one outside of the gaming industry acts like this. Lol imagine if every company outside of the gaming industry acted like this, the entire world would crumble(trade makes the world go around).

[E.J.]

Digital Rights Management (DRM), enough said...

Nintendo.

Without Nintendo, there wouldn't have been a console market after the Atari crash. They brought back the US market anyways, for competition with SEGA that is...

Competition is good for games...

[TmEE]

Europeans had no crash here... no Nintendo, and Sega would have dominated Europe, and Germany would perhaps not be the gaming pussies of Europe as there's no Nintendo with the kiddie games... and USA guys would have embraced their Macs and PCs and doing spreadsheets on them.... lol

[Dant]

Digital Rights Management (DRM), enough said...


Without Nintendo, there wouldn't have been a console market after the Atari crash. They brought back the US market anyways, for competition with SEGA that is...

Competition is good for games...

Fixed for specificity, while there was a crash, it was more of a movement of the games market from consoles to the various home computers of the time.

[NeoVamp]

High Res adventure games, i hate 'm!!

Bring back the Monkey Island 1 and 2 look, bring back Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis style!!

[Zoltor]

High Res adventure games, i hate 'm!!

Bring back the Monkey Island 1 and 2 look, bring back Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis style!!

Yea I loved Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.

[Iron Lizard]

Games that never got translations that they used to tease us with.

[Defolto]

Without a doubt stupidity, ignorance I can handle stupidity I cannot. Thankfully here in these forums most people are pretty damn smart.

[kool kitty89]

Without Nintendo, there wouldn't have been a console market after the Atari crash. They brought back the US market anyways, for competition with SEGA that is...

Regardless, the market was recovering either way and Nintendo's, Atari's, and Sega's releases in 1986 were signs of that. (actually Atari Corp's holiday sales in 1985 were the first major sign -at a time when Nintendo's NYC test market was not promising at all -things changed dramatically the next year, and NYC probably wasn't the best choice in the first place) By the time Nintendo started taking the lead, the market had already recovered. (1986 was an open playing field, 1987 is when Nintendo took the market)

That's not to say that Nintendo didn't expand the market and change it (namely due to very good marketing) and that's something that wouldn't have happened by other companies without that same sort of marketing. (Atari Corp's main limit was a very tight budget and lack of in-house software developers -Michael Katz managed things impressively in spite of that though)

And without the Famicom, the Japanese console market wouldn't have taken off in 1983 (right hardware and right marketing at the right time), though I suppose you could argue the MSX could have filled that gap too. Of course, one big factor in the JP market was that all previous consoles were older Pong consoles and a couple primitive cart based systems. Critically, Atari failed to localize the 2600 (2800) in Japan until AFTER the Famicom and SG-1000 launched. (had it appeared in 1980/81 who knows what mighty have happened)

Of course the crash itself is what allowed Nintendo to dig into the US market without strong competition in 1986. In particular the other major console manufacturers (Mattel, Coleco, etc) had totally dropped out of the business and dumped their old hardware/software back in '84 rather than pulling spending way back and trying to see where things went from there (ie handle their own liquidation of back stock at a moderate pace and still officially support the hardware) the fact that Mattel and Coleco both screwed up with their Computers didn't help matters though. (as it was, Intev took up the license of the Intellivision and sold another 3 million units post crash to Mattel's 3 million pre-crash)

Atari Inc otoh was finally getting the management it needed with James Morgan working hard to reorganize the bureaucratic mess it had become. However, Warner ruined all that (and made a huge mess of things) when they abruptly sold the consumer holdings of Atari Inc in 1984. (some blame Jack Tramiel for the problems that ensued, but it was Warner who made the transition to Atari Corp a total mess by not notifying Atari Inc -including James Morgan- of a pending sale before hand and the fact the actual deal went down during 4th of July weekend exacerbated that).
In addition to rebuilding Atari Inc into a lean, efficient company, there were several key events occuring in 1984 prior to the sale:
-The 7800 was about to be launched (expanding a fairly positive California test market in early '84, with further expansion commencing and preparations for a national launch underway).
-An adapter to play 7800 games on the 5200 was in development
-A high score SRAM lock-on cart was planned (to save scores and other small amounts of data)
-A computer expansion module was planned for the 7800
-The low-cost 2600 Jr was nearing completion.
-The lower-cost 5200 Jr/5100 was being considered.
-A corrected 5200 controller had been fully prototyped and was nearing production. (the buttons had not been addressed, but the bulky potentiometers and non-centering analog stick was replaced by an entirely new compact spring-loaded precision module)
-Atari Inc had several advanced 16-bit computer chipsets fully prototyped (mostly completed in 1983 but shelved temporarily during reorganization), apparently several were more advanced than the Amiga.
-Several new games were in development.

And all of that was lost, delayed, or hindered by Warner's rash actions that July.
I'm sure Tramiel would have loved to use some of that computer hardware too (under Atari Corp), but those were among several designs to be lost (or "walk off") in the utter confusion that Warner made of the sale. (along with hardware and documents disappearing, much of the key programming and engineering staff left as well -many suing Atari Inc over the debacle)
Of course that also separated the Arcade and consumer divisions of Atari Inc, so not only did they lose the console/computer programmers/engineers, but the arcade developers too. (which of course went to Atari Games owned by Warner for a short time, then Namco, the independent in 1986)

The fact that the Arcade market crashed just prior to the console market in '83 was also a big hurt on Atari Inc prior to that. Then Atari's computers also taking a big hit due to the C64 and internal complications. (there's a lot more to it too)
Commodore made a mess of things at the time with the C64 price being dumped like that. (in the price war with TI)

Competition is good for games...

Yep, and that's what Nintendo ruined around 1988 and it took some hefty marketing and considerable spending for Sega to break that in the early 90s. (granted it was Sega's "fault" that Nintendo got to the position they did by the end of 1987 due to poor marketing in North America)

Without that, the SMS in particular could have done far better in the US. Nintendo would have had the advantage of an earlier established market (with good marketing in '86/87) but the main thing holding Tonka back (with their better marketing in '88) was lack of 3rd party support and additional funding. (Nintendo's licensing policies killed 3rd party competition on other consoles)
The 7800 (and 2600 -continued support as a baseline budget platform with continued newer releases) almost definitely would have had better support too, but its rather distinct graphics architecture likely would have made certain games/ports less popular to release on it. (either it would take more work or not look as good -the biggest thing about the 7800 is the sprite capabilities and total lack of flicker/drop-out, though the palette was quite nice too)

Part of that would be European developer interest in publishing in the US.

Europeans had no crash here... no Nintendo, and Sega would have dominated Europe, and Germany would perhaps not be the gaming pussies of Europe as there's no Nintendo with the kiddie games... and USA guys would have embraced their Macs and PCs and doing spreadsheets on them.... lol

And none in Japan either, it was a North American thing... and in the US the C64 was dominant at the time (and continued support for the Apple II, declining support for the Atari 8-bits, and growing support for the PC/clones -and for a time the ST and Amiga). With no NES, there's a whole mess of variables with Atari, Commodore, maybe Apple (more for the Apple II until it died), and IBM/clone manufacturers. And the software developers of course.

And no FC in Japan and you've only got the MSX and PC-8801/other computers at the time, and possibly no SG-1000 and no console market taking off in Japan at all, but computers being more dominant.

[JRedmond3]

People who say that some random game is a "God of War ripoff".

Yes, because Devil May Cry, Legacy of Kain, Rygar, etc, never existed and God of War is completely original.

[Devil N]

Region locking and unoptimized PAL games are my pet peeves, but that's about it.

Gaming is meant to be fun, so if something about gaming evokes negative feelings inside you, then clearly you're doing something wrong.

[runback22]

Without a doubt stupidity, ignorance I can handle stupidity I cannot. Thankfully here in these forums most people are pretty damn smart.

In my experience, those two usually go hand in hand.

[NeoVamp]

You know what i hate? the recent surge of SHAKEY CAMS!

I've been playing "Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles" for a bit now,
and its just.. its just not fun!

I love lightgun games, but the "reality shake" just makes me carsick.

[M4R14NO94]

You know what i hate? the recent surge of SHAKEY CAMS!

I've been playing "Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles" for a bit now,
and its just.. its just not fun!

I love lightgun games, but the "reality shake" just makes me carsick.

Not exactly a lightgun game, but I think you won't like Kane & Lynch 2