Nintendo Monopoly On The Gaming Industry Video. Must See!

[Melf]

Yeah, Nintendo's policies were pretty crap in the 80's. Still, it's not like they forced the developers to sign the retarded contracts in the first place. If they didn't want to sell out to Nintendo they didn't have to, so while obviously most of the blame goes to Nintendo, the developers were looking at teh munnies too.

Actually, they did force publishers; that was the problem. If you wanted to release games for the Master System, TG-16 or 7800, Nintendo wouldn't sell you or would undersell you cartridges, if it allowed you to release games for the NES at all. It would also "ask" retailers not to carry your product.

It was a massive success, Nintendo carved out it's own market and made it very hard for competitors. Evil? Perhaps but to the victor goes the spoils.

Being successful doesn't give a company any right to monopolize the market and remove consumer choice. The fact that Nintendo's massive dominance evaporated once it no longer had complete control shows that consumers wanted options.

[Metalwario64]

Actually, they did force publishers; that was the problem. If you wanted to release games for the Master System, TG-16 or 7800, Nintendo wouldn't sell you or would undersell you cartridges, if it allowed you to release games for the NES at all. It would also "ask" retailers not to carry your product.

Oh, I see I worded that terribly. I meant to infer that they could have developed for other companies like Sega or NEC instead of Nintendo if they didn't like the contract, but on the other hand, you remind me that they tried to force competing products from other retailers, so it is like being between a rock and a hard place I suppose.

[MrMatthews]

Sure you say that, it's not your ass that was on the line. It's ilegal, there's nothing to agree to.
It's this type of savage capitalism that crashed the economy of Europe and the US. If not, why did Occupy Wall Street happened?

If Microsoft had pulled that crap, everyone would be on their asses, but Nintendo always gets a free pass.

Yeah, well Microsoft is now prohibited from doing that kind of thing nowadays, as are Nintendo. Which of course begs the question: did Nintendo even do anything illegal at the time? Honest question, I don't know (nor do I care enough to research it). Either way, it worked out pretty well for me as a kid, because I ONLY had an NES, which made it pretty nice to have all those games available to me.

[bultje112]

Yeah, well Microsoft is now prohibited from doing that kind of thing nowadays, as are Nintendo. Which of course begs the question: did Nintendo even do anything illegal at the time? Honest question, I don't know (nor do I care enough to research it). Either way, it worked out pretty well for me as a kid, because I ONLY had an NES, which made it pretty nice to have all those games available to me.

did you even watch the video?

[MrMatthews]

Nope.

Edit: Just did. I cut it off at the last minute when they were chiding Nintendo for manufacturing everything overseas, because I had had enough bullshit. Given the state of the world we live in TODAY, criticizing one company for overseas work is laughable, since the entirety of America is against the ropes because EVERYONE is doing that now. The irony is that Nintendo was and continues to be a Japanese company - why wouldn't they manufacture their products in their home country and DISTRIBUTE to the rest of the world? That's just one of the ridiculous, alarmist slants that video took.

Let's take a look at some of the others.

The two companies that spoke out against Nintendo's evil "monopoly" were Tengen and American Video Entertainment. They wanted to make UNLICENSED games for the NES because they didn't want to deal with Nintendo's strict publishing rules. They spoke about the NES as if it was some kind of vague piece of hardware like a VCR that EVERYONE should be able to make software for. However, the NES (just like nearly every game system that has come out since) uses a proprietary format that is owned BY Nintendo. So why is it wrong for them to be in complete control of the games that come out for it? Is everyone forgetting the much-publicized "Video Game Crash" that in part happen BECAUSE of the very shenanigans Nintendo was trying to prevent? If I wanted to make a PS3 game RIGHT NOW, I would need to follow the proper protocol and go through Sony. Does that necessarily make Sony evil? No, that's just the way it works. A game system is NOT a VCR, it is NOT a DVD Player. It is a proprietary piece of hardware and I need PERMISSION to try to make a profit off of it.

I can't believe that of all the things Nintendo has done, of all the slimy, bullying methods Nintendo used to control the market share, THESE are the points the video touched on; STANDARD BUSINESS PRACTICES that are used by everyone to this day.

[bpguimaraes23]

Can't watch YouTube at work, but this conversation reminded me of Nintendo's involvement on the Night Trap witch hunt. They played very dirty at that time.

[KnightWarrior]

Sounds like EA

[A Black Falcon]

Nope.

Edit: Just did. I cut it off at the last minute when they were chiding Nintendo for manufacturing everything overseas, because I had had enough bullshit. Given the state of the world we live in TODAY, criticizing one company for overseas work is laughable, since the entirety of America is against the ropes because EVERYONE is doing that now. The irony is that Nintendo was and continues to be a Japanese company - why wouldn't they manufacture their products in their home country and DISTRIBUTE to the rest of the world? That's just one of the ridiculous, alarmist slants that video took.

Let's take a look at some of the others.

The two companies that spoke out against Nintendo's evil "monopoly" were Tengen and American Video Entertainment. They wanted to make UNLICENSED games for the NES because they didn't want to deal with Nintendo's strict publishing rules. They spoke about the NES as if it was some kind of vague piece of hardware like a VCR that EVERYONE should be able to make software for. However, the NES (just like nearly every game system that has come out since) uses a proprietary format that is owned BY Nintendo. So why is it wrong for them to be in complete control of the games that come out for it? Is everyone forgetting the much-publicized "Video Game Crash" that in part happen BECAUSE of the very shenanigans Nintendo was trying to prevent? If I wanted to make a PS3 game RIGHT NOW, I would need to follow the proper protocol and go through Sony. Does that necessarily make Sony evil? No, that's just the way it works. A game system is NOT a VCR, it is NOT a DVD Player. It is a proprietary piece of hardware and I need PERMISSION to try to make a profit off of it.

I can't believe that of all the things Nintendo has done, of all the slimy, bullying methods Nintendo used to control the market share, THESE are the points the video touched on; STANDARD BUSINESS PRACTICES that are used by everyone to this day.

Nintendo invented that practice, you know. It wasn't like that before, not really. American third parties did NOT like the idea of having to pay someone fees to publish games on their platform, and many resisted for a long time... so yes, that is the model that has stuck ever since, but it is something Nintendo created, so seeing third party companies unhappy about that model would be expected. Back before the NES third parties didn't have to pay fees to publish, after all. Sure, that was one of the contributing factors to the crash, but they didn't have to pay fees...

[MrMatthews]

Nintendo invented that practice, you know. It wasn't like that before, not really. American third parties did NOT like the idea of having to pay someone fees to publish games on their platform, and many resisted for a long time... so yes, that is the model that has stuck ever since, but it is something Nintendo created, so seeing third party companies unhappy about that model would be expected. Back before the NES third parties didn't have to pay fees to publish, after all. Sure, that was one of the contributing factors to the crash, but they didn't have to pay fees...

Yeah, I inferred most of that from the vid. The butt-hurtness of Tengen and that dumbass Frick was pretty obvious ("Why can't we make a quick and easy buck? Why do we have to follow rules? It's a MANAHPLY!!!!"

That was a laughably biased and utterly misleading video even within its original context of the early 90s or so. By today's standards, it's dated and irrelevant.

And yet we have the majority of this thread waving pitchforks and feeling like their darkest suspicions have now been confirmed. Grow up, children.

[Bottino]

Yeah, I inferred most of that from the vid. The butt-hurtness of Tengen and that dumbass Frick was pretty obvious ("Why can't we make a quick and easy buck? Why do we have to follow rules? It's a MANAHPLY!!!!"

That was a laughably biased and utterly misleading video even within its original context of the early 90s or so. By today's standards, it's dated and irrelevant.

And yet we have the majority of this thread waving pitchforks and feeling like their darkest suspicions have now been confirmed. Grow up, children.

[Iron Lizard]

The only rules to follow were Nintendo's and the courts sided against them. Had they not our beloved Genesis have have been a very different story.

[kool kitty89]

Actually, they did force publishers; that was the problem. If you wanted to release games for the Master System, TG-16 or 7800, Nintendo wouldn't sell you or would undersell you cartridges, if it allowed you to release games for the NES at all. It would also "ask" retailers not to carry your product.

Unless they went unlicensed, Nintendo had 100% control on cart manufacturing too . . . all licensed publishers had to buy carts from Nintendo.




Anyway, Nintendo was hugely restrictive and anticompetitive to be sure, quite possibly the worst combined consumer/publisher/console competition scenario in home video game history. (even at Sony or MS's worst, they had major competiton to keep them somewhat "honest" by comparison, let alone the situation with Atari in the early 80s).


That said, Nintendo had to be in a very good position ALREADY in terms of having a good, marketable product with good marketing and support BEFORE they would have the leverage needed to assert that kind of control.
In Japan, they already had that by 1985 (as Mike Katz discovered when trying to license new arcade titles for the 7800 in mid '85), and with the lead in Japan and Nintendo's very successful 1986 season, they'd gained enough momentum to start throwing their weight around by 1987, and it only got worse from there.
--Though I'm still not entirely sure how Nintendo managed that control in Japan rather than 3rd parties going unlicensed like their US contemporaries with the 2600/IV/CV/5200/etc. (there was no lock-out on the Famicom in Japan and it shouldn't have been unrealistic to reverse engineer development tools/documentation . . . western developers certainly found workarounds in spite of the lock out chip)

--Note, that's not to say that Nintendo was EVER more lax with licensing or such, but just that 3rd party publishers wouldn't openly take that risk initially (but Nintendo's Japanese support more than made up for that in '86 and '87). And on the retail end, they initially were at quite a disadvantages, but their ~3 years of effort in attempts to release the Famicom in NA seemed to gain them some valuable experience in the nature of that market, and I assume contributed to their collaboration with Worlds of Wonder to coerce retailers to carry the system. (especially important for getting the cheaper/simpler control deck bundle out there -the elaborate and costly Deluxe Set was originally made just to coax retailers into carrying the system at all . . . and that ended up counter-productive to average consumers. but Nintendo had worked around that issue by Spring of '86 during their expanded test market -ie their first real success in the US market, and what led to the massive holiday sales that year)




And in that context, you've got to consider Sega and Atari Corp's posttions in North America in 1986. Atari simply lacked the funding to really push much harder than they did with marketing and software development for the 7800. (though I do wonder what they were thinking with Europe -both in terms of a very delayed release and general lack of exploiting European computer games, given the shift to computer developer licencing when Katz discovered Nintendo's lock on Arcade stuff)

For Sega it seems the funding issue was somewhat a factor, but many, many times less than Atari Corp. They were at least close enough to be technically competitive with Nintendo's initial marketing budgets (1986/87 spending). They had the same issues with 3rd party publishers, but had very strong internal software resources (though they failed to draw much on computer game licenses, especially given the potential in Europe).
The bigger issue seems to have come down to management of the US branch and/or delegation of marketing/distribution. (ie lack of investing in building up a capable in-house regional marketing/management team for SoA -as they later would for the Genesis- or lack of licensing to a comptent American distributor more like what happened in Europe) I imagine Nintendo's extended period experience gained from trying to market the Famicom in the US from '83-85 probably gave them an edge too.

Huh, I wonder if Sega ever considered licensing to Atari Corp back in '85 as they later would in '88 for the MD. They might have been able to sway them to drop the 7800 project, and with Katz's management, Atari's brand and distribution channels, Sega's software (plus some added computer software a la Katz's negotiation), and some marketing budget boost/investment from Sega, that might have been really interesting.
OTOH, if Tramiel and Rosen couldn't agree on that issue in 1988, there's a fair change the same would have been true in '85. (except Atari and Sega were both a bit weaker then, and probably more open to compromise)

[Obviously]

Nintendo did some awful things to try and crush the competition, things we already knew about, but quit pretending like Sega or any other big player is a bastion of corporate morality.

I always thought the Tengen thing was ironic given the Atari and Activision debacle. It's amazing how things change when fortunes are reversed.

[Rusty Venture]

Sega was eager to please when they were trying to establish themselves. But once they got big, they started pulling crap like Nintendo.

There is absolutely no reason as to why most of the editing done to SOR3 needed to be done. I can understand removing Ash, but hacking up the story and the outfit color change? This is Nintendo caliber editing/censorship.

[kool kitty89]

Nintendo did some awful things to try and crush the competition, things we already knew about, but quit pretending like Sega or any other big player is a bastion of corporate morality.

I always thought the Tengen thing was ironic given the Atari and Activision debacle. It's amazing how things change when fortunes are reversed.

Except that Tengen wasn't Warner Atari . . . granted it WAS made up of Arari Inc staff, but the arcade staff, nothing to do with the upper management consumer division that Activision was mostly sued over. (aside from upper management related arcade stuff for copyright infringement for clones of games -not sure if that was a problem with Activision so much with Atari, though I know Imagic's Demon Attack was sued over -and Atari won)


What I find MUCH more ironic about Tengen/Atari Games going unlicensed is that they were parterned with Namco for a time, and Namco got a shit-ass raw deal trying to break away from Nintendo in Japan. (eventually being forced to make a hummilating public appology to Nintendo after failing to make headway as a non-Ninendo publisher -NEC missed a huge opportunity there which Sony later exploited heavily)

And then the Rabbit chip . . . also very ironic. Atari Games invests all that time and money reverse engineering the NES lock out chip only to run into major legal issues exacerbated by Atari Games also having requested various Nintendo patent documents. (I'm not sure whether it was established that that was an unfortunate coincedence or not . . . I know Atari Corp had a bunch of patents they negotiated -or sued- to get proper licensing royalties for, but I'm not sure what patents Atari Games took with them)
In any case, it's generally ironic given that a far simpler and cheaper voltage spiking circuit could be used to simply glitch the lockout chip without any legal issues. (Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree and Camerica/Codemasters did that)
Supposedly some late model NESs fixed that exploit, but I've never seen it. (my Quattro Adventure cart works on all the NESs I've tried, incuding the toploader -though it also has the weird issue of making the video go out of sync on a select few TVs -only certain early/mid 2000s Sanyo CRTs so far . . . then again, it seems like most/all late 80s Zenith Advence System TVs don't sync properly for PSX/PS2 stuff in 240p )