Computer publishers and developers of the 80s.

[NeoZeedeater]

It's fine if you're not interested in non-PC computer games. I just don't know what compels you to judge games and systems you haven't played. That kind of shit rubs people the wrong way.

I like when you do your mini-reviews on games you have played because, you know, you actually played them.

[gamevet]

The problem with what you're trying to do is that the whole point is about sales, public awareness, and the number of people playing games. Of course there were games on computers -- the point is that most people didn't know or care, including most who had had Ataris or other systems. And it was the NES that brought them back.

Of course there are exceptions. Computer gaming has always been popular in the West, and lots of us, including me, grew up on computer games; the only console I owned before 1999 were Game Boys, after all. And late '80s to early '00s PC gaming was AMAZING. But in terms of sales? It was clearly eclipsed by console games. The PC games are just as good, but that's not the point -- the point is about success and how many people were actually playing the games. This is the same for either the '80s or the '90s, except that computer games were far more successful overall in the '90s because of the growing omnipresence of PC compatibles.

No, what I was proving, is that there were legit publishers making games for the computers, before the crash ever happened. I specifically chose American publishers that were founded between 1980-1983 and had a solid history within the gaming community.

And no, your own personal experiences really don't prove anything.

This is more than just about my personal experience. It's about the complete ignorance of gamers and media, when they look back at videogame history. They overlook a large segment of videogame history that gets completely ignored if it doesn't have the names Nintendo or Atari attached to it.

If you check out old videos (made in the last 15 years) about the history of the computers, they'll talk about Apple, IBM and Xerox missing the boat. They don't talk about the Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Amiga or C-64, because they seem to view them more as computers for kids and homes.

Europe is not the US, and back then the two markets were very different. I can't possibly imagine someone looking down on the NES though, particularly in comparison to what look to me like the very low average quality levels of most videos I've seen of many '80s UK computer games... but I am sure the computers were a whole lot cheaper and more popular, and gaming tastes in Europe and the US obviously are (and were, even more so then probably) different. I mean, I doubt that Europe has the same somewhat negative connotations for the term "Euro-platformer" that we have here in the US... and the same for Euro-shmup. There was much more of a war to the bottom, price-wise, in Europe than in the US. PC games here were always cheaper than console games, and still are, but I don't think that they were ever quite as cheap as the kinds of prices I've seen mentioned for lots of British computer games... and of course cheap computers weren't popular here either, past the mid '80s as the C64 faded. There was no long life of 8-bit computers in the US, and one of the top 8-bit computers in the US was the Apple II anyway, which certainly was never cheap (the C64 and Atari 8-bit would probably be the other major ones, along with the TI 99/4A earlier; those were cheaper). Nor were PCs, once they became the standard by the late '80s. Also, of course, cassette tapes didn't last as a popular game medium here past, like, 1984 or something. The two markets were very different. But anyway, Americans were willing to spend in order to get the better gameplay and graphics NES games had. The NES had the best games, and it still has one of the best game libraries ever.

The big diffences between Europe and North America is that we had computers and consoles for a much longer time than Europe. You also couldn't sell a flimsy looking computer like the Spectrum here, while the UK embraced it and supported it for a really long time.

Yes, there was a very long time of support and sales of 8-bit computers for North America, starting with the Apple II and Atari 8-bit computers in the 70s and the C-64 up until 1992. Just look at the Commodore magazine from 1989, that I'm attaching below. It has Jordan vs. Bird on the cover and a 2 page spread by Taito for their arcade games for the C-64. That's a lot of support from a company, for a system you're trying to say was nothing in the late 80s here.

[NeoZeedeater]

This is more than just about my personal experience. It's about the complete ignorance of gamers and media, when they look back at videogame history. They overlook a large segment of videogame history that gets completely ignored if it doesn't have the names Nintendo or Atari attached to it.

Everyone at a Genesis fan site should be able to relate to that.

[goldenband]

People did care about game son home computers back then (I know that I did), and the NES was looked down on as some crappy, over priced grey box which also had over-priced games.

What demographic are you referencing? I never heard anyone say anything like that about the NES during its prime years -- everyone I knew who cared about video games thought it was hot shit.

My peers were young teenagers, but I also had adult siblings who enjoyed and played the NES (along with their husbands-to-be), and who were living in urban centers like DC and SF. If you were hanging out with nerdy college kids or adult programmers in Silicon Valley, it might've been a very different equation.

You also couldn't sell a flimsy looking computer like the Spectrum here, while the UK embraced it and supported it for a really long time.

What was the pricing like on the Timex clone of the ZX Spectrum? I don't think the C64 ever got as cheap as £99 (or the US equivalent), which is a crazy low price, though obviously the C64 is a more capable machine in most or all ways. Still, I don't see any clear-cut reason why the Spectrum couldn't have flourished here if it'd been priced and marketed aggressively enough.

[gamevet]

What demographic are you referencing? I never heard anyone say anything like that about the NES during its prime years -- everyone I knew who cared about video games thought it was hot shit.

Most of the early NES titles were ports of older 8-bit computer games, with very little improvement. The 1st time I saw the NES, I'd thought they were asking way too much for the console, and the demo the store had was Duck Hunt. I thought Mike Tyson's Punchout!!! looked kind of lame, until I actually played the game on a friend's NES in early 1989. What's funny is that he bought the NES, after playing many rounds of John Elway's QB on the C-64; it eventually led to him buying the console.

My peers were young teenagers, but I also had adult siblings who enjoyed and played the NES (along with their husbands-to-be), and who were living in urban centers like DC and SF. If you were hanging out with nerdy college kids or adult programmers in Silicon Valley, it might've been a very different equation.

It didn't help to win over a lot of adults early on, when you'd see the system with a toy robot on display. It really looked like a kids toy at that point.

What was the pricing like on the Timex clone of the ZX Spectrum? I don't think the C64 ever got as cheap as £99 (or the US equivalent), which is a crazy low price, though obviously the C64 is a more capable machine in most or all ways. Still, I don't see any clear-cut reason why the Spectrum couldn't have flourished here if it'd been priced and marketed aggressively enough.

I believe it was $99 here as well. I remember seeing the Timex Sinclair at a K-Mart, but not much more than that.

Would you buy something that looked as cheap as this?

The C-64 launched with a price tag of $598 in 1982. The price was dropped to $300 in 1983, and the system sold 2.5 million units that year. Tramiel made it even more affordable, by offer $100 credit for anyone that traded in their old gaming console. The price would drop down to $200 in 1984 and would eventually drop down to $100 somewhere around 1985.

[j_factor]

What was the pricing like on the Timex clone of the ZX Spectrum? I don't think the C64 ever got as cheap as £99 (or the US equivalent), which is a crazy low price, though obviously the C64 is a more capable machine in most or all ways. Still, I don't see any clear-cut reason why the Spectrum couldn't have flourished here if it'd been priced and marketed aggressively enough.

There was no direct equivalent of the Spectrum released in North America. The closest thing was the Timex Sinclair 2068. That computer has a cartridge port, two joystick ports, and an additional sound chip (the same one that was in later Spectrum models). Spectrum software won't run on it. Timex exited the computer business a few months after its release.

[gamevet]

There was no direct equivalent of the Spectrum released in North America. The closest thing was the Timex Sinclair 2068. That computer has a cartridge port, two joystick ports, and an additional sound chip (the same one that was in later Spectrum models). Spectrum software won't run on it. Timex exited the computer business a few months after its release.

The 2068 was the follow up, to the Sinclair 1000(ZX-81). I have a link posted above that talks about its short-lived life here. Timex managed to sell 600,000 units, before replacing it with the 2068.

Edit: All this time I was thinking that the Sinclair 1000 was the Spectrum. It turns out that the ZX-81 was a short-lived computer in the UK as well, before they had released the Spectrum.

[j_factor]

Regarding the price of the C64, I was thumbing through Compute! magazine (it's available on archive.org) and noticed this ad in a 1985 issue.



Apparently the C64 was $140 in 1985. That's a little less than £99. I would bet that the C64 original model was reduced to $99 the following year when the C64C was introduced.

[gamevet]

Regarding the price of the C64, I was thumbing through Compute! magazine (it's available on archive.org) and noticed this ad in a 1985 issue.

Apparently the C64 was $140 in 1985. That's a little less than £99. I would bet that the C64 original model was reduced to $99 the following year when the C64C was introduced.

I'm looking through my issue of Family Computing from July 1986. The price was $139 in that magazine as well. I'm thinking that I got that $100 price from when the computer was selling for $200 and Tramiel was knocking off $100 with a console trade-in.

[A Black Falcon]

I'd never seen one before, but a store around here got in a Timex Sinclair 1000 recently, which was pretty interesting to see. Tiny little thing, though yeah that keyboard looks HORRIBLE! The guy said that he'd actually had one at the time, I think, but got rid of it after not too long when it became clear how bad it was compared to other computers...

And yeah, I also was confused about the difference between the TS1000/ZX81 and the Spectrum, but the TS1000/ZX81 is a B&W system with an absurdly tiny 1KB of RAM. I believe the TS1000 in the store has a RAM expansion module with it... not too useful without the thing, I believe.

I don't have much interest in owning one, but oddly, I actually own one TS1000 game, Chess (in the box), because I found one at a library book sale some years ago and picked it up, probably on the "buy a bag for a few dollars" day...

[Kamahl]

I'm sure the C64 and Atari 8-bit are quite competitive in things like horribly dated adventure games and RPGs, and probably are better for strategy games, but for any kind of action game... sorry, no way does what I've seen of C64, Apple II, or Atari 8-bit action games get anywhere near what you see on the NES.

Turrican? Mayhem in Monsterland? Enforcer? Creatures? Myth? Navy Seals? Commando? Dropzone? Exile? International Karate? Ghouls and Ghosts? Rambo? Salamander? Stormlord? Livingstone? Druid? Project Firestart? Airborne Ranger? First Samurai?

[gamevet]

It's pretty funny what ABF comes up with. The guy is a legend in his own mind.

I posted a 2 page ad by Taito, that was in a Commodore Magazine from 1989. The ad had games like Bubble Bobble, Operation Wolf, Renegade and Arkanoid in it.

There's many more:

Donkey Kong (all 4 levels)
Centipede
Congo Bongo
Defender
Gyruss
Pac-Man
Jumpman
Load-Runner
Montezuma's Revenge
Mountain King
Raid over Moscow
Blue-Max
Time Pilot
Marble Madness
Beach-Head
Karate Champ
Way of the Exploding Fist
1942
Boulder Dash
Great Gianna Sisters
Pitfall II
Zaxxon
Super Zaxxon

[zetastrike]

It's pretty funny what ABF comes up with. The guy is a legend in his own mind.

I posted a 2 page ad by Taito, that was in a Commodore Magazine from 1989. The ad had games like Bubble Bobble, Operation Wolf, Renegade and Arkanoid in it.

There's many more:

You guys don't get it, if ABF hasn't heard of it there's no way it can be good. He possesses the forbidden algorithm to determine the quality of any game, developed by Nintendo so they could honestly put their Seal on all their stuff. We just can't think on his level.

[Kamahl]

There's many more:

I know, I was mostly going for the more "NES era" style games, of course the Atari and C64 have tons of great classic arcade ports. Great Giana sisters was a nasty omission on my part.

[j_factor]

Turrican? Mayhem in Monsterland? Enforcer? Creatures? Myth? Navy Seals? Commando? Dropzone? Exile? International Karate? Ghouls and Ghosts? Rambo? Salamander? Stormlord? Livingstone? Druid? Project Firestart? Airborne Ranger? First Samurai?

I very nearly typed out a long reply to that statement. It's so fanboyish and complete BS. But there's no point in engaging him on this. Once he's made up his mind -- without even playing the games -- there's no changing it.

Anyone who's familiar with the 8-bit computers knows that they have fun games, and not just strategy games and "horribly dated" adventure games and RPGs. The NES has some advantages in terms of graphics, of course. But in terms of the games, not really. That's not to say that any 8-bit computer had a platformer that was as good as Super Mario Bros. 3. Some would argue that the Genesis didn't either. But they certainly had good action games.

I always felt that computers had more sophisticated games than the NES. I think that's why I like the Master System, because games like Phantasy Star and Zillion kind of had that same vibe.

I would agree that the NES has a better selection of straight action/platformer games like Shatterhand, Ninja Gaiden, etc. But that's a far cry from what he was saying.