NES turns 30

[midnightrider]

Sega was going to be a video game company no matter what. They went through 3 failures(though the last one did catch on in some locations) and still went ahead with the Genesis. Nintendo's stranglehold on 3rd parties no doubt shaped the Genesis' library, but considering how things went down, there's no doubt in my mind the Genesis would have come about in time, regardless. Unless there was a possible scenario where the previous consoles were so much of a failure that even their arcade division couldn't save them.

On topic: Btw, happy 30th NES .

[Gentlegamer]

Sega owes a lot to Nintendo. Sega had to fight retailers who would only carry Nintendo products. Nintendo had to fight retailers who wouldn't carry video games at all.

[stu]

Let's all thank the NES for saving video games.

Sounds like something copied off of NintendoAge or something. All Praise the Mighty NES!

Sega owes a lot to Nintendo. Sega had to fight retailers who would only carry Nintendo products. Nintendo fight retailers who wouldn't carry video games at all.

Nintendo's laziness and complacency gave Sega their opportunity in US and like a company hungry for success Sega grabbed it with both hands. Sega doesn't owe Nintendo anything, they earned all their success through hard work, excellent hardware and software and innovative advertising. In much of Europe Sega schooled Nintendo on how to sell consoles, especially in the UK.

[Bloodreign]

30 years of entertainment, and the console that gave ME gaming at home (arcades were still doing well for me, so many games to ooh and ahh at over time), and a system today I have around 320 games for, and still trying to get stuff for cheap. SMB 1was the first game I played on the thing, I'd spend hours on the NES kiosk at Sears when my brothers would roam the mall, it was the only kiosk that wouldn't reset every 10 minutes (screw you Wal-Mart and having yours reset every 10 minutes to discourage kids from just hanging around haha). That Sears kiosk also allowed me not to worry about arcade games and having to carry money all the time to play them, free video games won out a lot. Finally got my first of 2 NES systems in 1988, still have it, the second would come many years later, the toploader I found locally for around $50.

That same Sears years later let me play a Genesis, and an SNES, and was my first exposure to a little gem I'd buy years later, Ristar.

[NeoZeedeater]

The NES is a fantastic system I will always go back to.

Nintendo had to fight retailers who wouldn't carry video games at all.

I remember the store shelves in 1985. They weren't empty of video games at all. Major retailers had walls of computer games. And they still had console stuff around as well. Arcade machines were still everywhere.

So, while some retailers may have been hesitant about consoles specifically (not video games in general), I doubt there were many that flat out refused to give new ones a chance. The SMS, while not a success in NA, was still widely distributed before the NES was popular. I think advertising was the main problem there, not access to buying it.

[Melf]

True. Games and hardware were still coming in and being sold, just not in the vast quantities they had been before. All the stores still had game sections, and a lot of stuff (I remember mostly 2600 games) was on clearance, but it was still being sold.

[KnightWarrior]

Nintendo had a Iron Grip in the US Market for til the early 90's

I wish some of thoes Games cama to the Master System, It wasn't fare what Nintendo was doing at the time