I think now I understand why the NES beat the 7800

[high voltage]

Funnily enough, Nintendo's been doing this for over 20 years now, rehashes of Zeldas and Marios, and Mario Karts, and now the old, SAME NES,SNES games re-appearing on Wiis, DSs.

 

I don't think that's fair. Nintendo has franchises (as do many, many, many other game companies) but most games are pretty different from each other.

 

 

Interview with Arnie Katz:

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4226/electronic_games_the_arnie_katz_.php?page=5

 

And the Tramiels did come back, but like you said about the 5200, they just sold the same games over and over again.

 

AK: Yeah, but Nintendo has done the same thing with their games.

 

Sure, but Nintendo made major improvements every time out.

 

AK: Yeah, but so did Atari. However, they were starting from such a primitive system that the improvements had to be small by comparison, and maybe not as good as the fans wanted them to be.

 

So Atari went from 2600- 5200 - 7800, whereas Nintendo went from NES - 16bit and up, far more scope.

 

Anyway, I believe all those Mario games after SMB have all the basics from SMB with very little new variety (It actually states in the book Game Over that

mothers were complaining their sons wanted SMW, when it just looked and played the same as SMB3...Another $200+ for THAT?).

Edited March 10, 2011 by high voltage

[Brian O]

If there was ever a more useless thread that went down the toilet that started with a fun post about whistles...this is it.

 

Anybody who blames Nintendo for the failure of Atari's many attempts at dominance post 2600 era...now they're the true fanboys.

 

Here's a tip: People obviously didn't want to play rehashes of early 80s games in 88 or 89!...and I'm pretty sure everybody knew it. Just like kids today don't give a rat's ass about playing Playstation 1 games now that the third machine is here. Believe me, I love my old systems and prefer those games, Atari, NES, Coleco, whatever. But time moves on. Arguing over this stuff is just goofy.

 

This ^^

[atarilovesyou]

People obviously didn't want to play rehashes of early 80s games in 88 or 89!

 

To be fair, by then, that wasn't what Atari was releasing. As we got towards that point, that's when the longer, larger NES like games were coming out.

 

 

I'm not sure, but I recall an issue of Atarian that I found in a magazine rack back then (I was pretty amazed to find it, actually!) and the only games they were pushing were...old arcade titles, for the most part. You had other games that were pretty awful...Fatal Run, some Arkanoid clone...some Gauntlet clone.

 

It seemed that they were trying to follow the NES in types of games, but the hardware certainly wasn't up to the task. It's funny, but I was nostalgic even THEN for those old games!!!...an early review of the 7800 in VGCE magazine compared the 'super titles' from all three big systems in the day (NES, SMS, 7800), and the 7800 was seriously lacking in titles that could compare to, say, Blaster Master.

 

I'm just wondering why so many here seem to think that it was anyone but Atari's own fault that they didn't do as well as the competition...citing Nintendo's marketing techniques, so forth. I mean, as a teen in those days, I can just tell ya how it was in our demographic: Atari was old news...I mean, I still loved it but not as much as the current consoles, but Atari systems during the late 80s just didn't compare to the NES or SMS, unless...UNLESS you wanted those older arcade ports. But I mean, we had the entire decade to play those games! People wanted Mario, Double Dragon!...not Xevious.

 

Ah, memories.

 

PS...Kool Kitty, I got no idea how you learned so much about the industry during that time, but you really seem to know your stuff and put it out in a very easy to read way. Write a book already!

[GroovyBee]

It seemed that they were trying to follow the NES in types of games, but the hardware certainly wasn't up to the task.

 

We'll have to agree to disagree on that .

[kool kitty89]

People obviously didn't want to play rehashes of early 80s games in 88 or 89!

 

To be fair, by then, that wasn't what Atari was releasing. As we got towards that point, that's when the longer, larger NES like games were coming out.

Yep, the problem was the quantity and quality of games coming out, and that was mainly limited by budget. (and to some extent the management decisions to push predominantly for the lower budget market)

 

Again, the lack of 3rd party support was the bigger problem, but even comparing the 1st party stuff, Nintendo obviously had a lot more to invest into it. (Atari had a lot of revenue coming from the computer division in the late 80s, of course, but you can't just divert that to the consoles without hefty trade-offs on the computer end of things -pushing for investment capital in some other way would have been extremely significant though, more risks involved for much of that, but in their position they were going to have to take risks to get big -tactful management and tempering of those risks would be crucial of course)

 

 

 

Funnily enough, Nintendo's been doing this for over 20 years now, rehashes of Zeldas and Marios, and Mario Karts, and now the old, SAME NES,SNES games re-appearing on Wiis, DSs.

 

I don't think that's fair. Nintendo has franchises (as do many, many, many other game companies) but most games are pretty different from each other.

Very true, and even for the games that are remakes or direct ports (or compilations), they're sold because there's still a demand/interest: as Atari should have for any older console/arcade games that there was current interest for. (Lynxpro had a good point in mentioning compilations though, including for the 2600 -at least once stockpiles of the original carts ran low)

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

Of the launch titles of the 7800, Ms Pac Man seems to have been the most enduring (and obviously the most popular at the time -the single bestselling Arcade game in North America ever iirc). It ended up as the bestselling 3rd party published Genesis game after all. A simple, but timeless, fun and addictive game that would have probably been the best pack-in for the 7800 at launch. (and probably a good time after that too)

 

And one early 80s game that SHOULD have been on the 7800 is Tempest since it had no official home port at the time. (Sinistar wouldn't be a bad one either, though it wasn't as popular -would have been really neat to have some of the speech, at least for the intermissions when you die if not in-game)

Edited March 10, 2011 by kool kitty89

[DracIsBack]

I'm not sure, but I recall an issue of Atarian that I found in a magazine rack back then (I was pretty amazed to find it, actually!)

 

You mean this?

 

http://www.atariage.com/magazines/atarian.html

[Rex Dart]

Anyway, I believe all those Mario games after SMB have all the basics from SMB with very little new variety (It actually states in the book Game Over that mothers were complaining their sons wanted SMW, when it just looked and played the same as SMB3...Another $200+ for THAT?).

 

 

Uh huh... mothers know video games.

 

*looks for bong icon in forum smileys*

[mbd30]

Maybe I missed something, but why were Atari arcade games such as "Marble Madness", "Paperboy" and "Gauntlet" on the NES, but not the Atari 7800? Atari couldn't port their own games to their own console?

[The_Laird]

Maybe I missed something, but why were Atari arcade games such as "Marble Madness", "Paperboy" and "Gauntlet" on the NES, but not the Atari 7800? Atari couldn't port their own games to their own console?

 

No because as already said about a million times here Atari Games (Tengen) and Atari Corp. (Tramiels) were seperate companies so they had to pay to license such games like they would with anyone else.

[mbd30]

Maybe I missed something, but why were Atari arcade games such as "Marble Madness", "Paperboy" and "Gauntlet" on the NES, but not the Atari 7800? Atari couldn't port their own games to their own console?

 

No because as already said about a million times here Atari Games (Tengen) and Atari Corp. (Tramiels) were seperate companies so they had to pay to license such games like they would with anyone else.

 

Okay, so then they couldn't afford or they didn't think it was worthwhile to pay to license those games. Makes sense. Thanks.

[jd_1138]

Maybe I missed something, but why were Atari arcade games such as "Marble Madness", "Paperboy" and "Gauntlet" on the NES, but not the Atari 7800? Atari couldn't port their own games to their own console?

 

No because as already said about a million times here Atari Games (Tengen) and Atari Corp. (Tramiels) were seperate companies so they had to pay to license such games like they would with anyone else.

 

Okay, so then they couldn't afford or they didn't think it was worthwhile to pay to license those games. Makes sense. Thanks.

 

It takes money to make money. How much per cartridge would it have been for Atari to release Paperboy, Gauntlet, etc. on the 7800? Nintendo paid the fees and thus was able to sell more product (consoles and cartridges). While Atari seemed to slink off to the corner, licking its wounds. I know I'm playing armchair CEO here, but if I had been running Atari, I'd have done things way differently -- better gamepads, more titles, etc..

[Cebus Capucinis]

I guess whistles are really a war-torn hard-topic around here.

[kool kitty89]

 

And the Tramiels did come back, but like you said about the 5200, they just sold the same games over and over again.

Which is totally wrong as described above. (about as wrong as any claims that the 7800 was a response to the NES's release )

 

Only the 1984 launch games (released in 1986) fit in that category any more than Nintendo's game lineup.

 

The issue was funding for internal development and interest/Nintendo's monopolistic licensing keeping 3rd parties off the system.

 

 

That article misunderstands the 5200 as well. (as software variety was not one of its major problems at all -lacking Pac Man at launch was significant though)

 

 

 

 

 

 

People obviously didn't want to play rehashes of early 80s games in 88 or 89!

 

To be fair, by then, that wasn't what Atari was releasing. As we got towards that point, that's when the longer, larger NES like games were coming out.

 

 

I'm not sure, but I recall an issue of Atarian that I found in a magazine rack back then (I was pretty amazed to find it, actually!) and the only games they were pushing were...old arcade titles, for the most part. You had other games that were pretty awful...Fatal Run, some Arkanoid clone...some Gauntlet clone.

Again, totally up to 3rd party support and funding.

 

It's not that they didn't have the right sort of games, but just didn't have the funding to invest in producing a competitive amount and quality of games in-house. (they'd have been hard pressed to come close to matching Nintendo's in-house software development, let alone the mass of 3rd parties that made the NES what it was in Japan and the west) By contrast, Sega's prominent position in the arcade and primary focus as a game software and hardware developer put it in a position where it had a fairly competitive lineup with almost no 3rd party publishers on the Master System, they also had decent marketing budgets too, but seem to have squandered their budget in '86/87 with poorly managed marketing in the US when they had a real chance at digging in as an equal to Nintendo. As such they fell well behind Atari Corp in market share -the 2600 and 7800 outsold the SMS in the US by a large margin from '86-89- in spite of Atari Corp's crippled software and marketing budgets, but very good management by Mike Katz for what he had to work with and a well-known brand name to work with. (so much so that it wasn't until after 1988 that Nintendo was known nationwide as well as Atari by the general public -obviously it varied by region and would have spread faster in some areas like the trendsetting east and west coast markets)

 

Market analysts saw Atari Corp, Sega, and Nintendo as virtual equals in 1986 and it wasn't until after the 1986 holiday season that Nintendo had a notable advantage in the market. (which became truly massive in 1987)

 

I'm just wondering why so many here seem to think that it was anyone but Atari's own fault that they didn't do as well as the competition...citing Nintendo's marketing techniques, so forth.

As I point out with an extensive explanation below, Atari Corp was in a very tight spot it had to work through and yes, its weaknesses put it at a considerable disadvantage (mainly not nearly as much money to throw around as Nintendo), but Nintendo had numerous other unfair advantages.

 

Not only did they have a 3 year lead in Japan with considerable support and back library of games, but they had monopolistic policies already in place in Japan for 3rd party publishing as well as a hefty amount of licenses secured for Famicom exclusives (ie not even allowed to be published on other consoles by other labels). They didn't have hardware lockout as in the US, but apparently had some other contractual system that was significant enough to be effective even with no security on the hardware. (still made piracy easier)

 

Thus, even with stronger funding, Atari was locked out from licensing almost any of the popular Japanese produced games at the time and blocked from 3rd party publishing (which Japanese developers would already have less incentive for). Nintendo had already started investing in the US market as well iirc, so by the time Mike Katz was setting up for the 7800 launch (making preparations in mid/late 1985), Nintendo was already building up in the US (though had not yet blocked any western publishers iirc). After the 1986 holiday season, Nitendo had the interest and clout in the US market to secure many US publishers under their rectrictive contracts and that only got worse as time went on and they got bigger. (and only declined in the early 90s as legal action was taken and as Sega's newly powerful and successful management tightened up real competition in the US)

 

So, with fair licensing, Nintendo still would have had an ever growing advantage in funding, stronger Japanese support, etc, but Atari (and Sega) undoubtedly would have gotten FAR more 3rd party support. (both got almost zero 3rd party published games in the entire lifespans of their systems -Sega's powerful in-house and 2nd party software development funding and resources were the only thing that kept the SMS's library as good as it was -better hardware to some extent too)

 

 

Atari was old news...I mean, I still loved it but not as much as the current consoles, but Atari systems during the late 80s just didn't compare to the NES or SMS, unless...UNLESS you wanted those older arcade ports. But I mean, we had the entire decade to play those games! People wanted Mario, Double Dragon!...not Xevious.

The competition (especially Nintendo since their console had been around in the heat of early 80s arcade games -in Japan) also had most of those older arcade games too (and a lot more), and often as good or better than the 7800 with a few exceptions. (again, funding, not enough of ANY genre or age games, lack of 3rd party support)

 

It seemed that they were trying to follow the NES in types of games, but the hardware certainly wasn't up to the task. It's funny, but I was nostalgic even THEN for those old games!!!...an early review of the 7800 in VGCE magazine compared the 'super titles' from all three big systems in the day (NES, SMS, 7800), and the 7800 was seriously lacking in titles that could compare to, say, Blaster Master.

The 7800 has some technical disadvantages and some advantages over the NES, but obviously the stronger supported system (by more than an order of magnitude) is goign to show it more. (rather like the C64 vs A8, A8 had advantages and disadvantages but the C64 got MUCH more and much longer and more widespread support)

 

You could think of the 7800 as being capable of pretty much anything seen on the C64, but with more color and detail (and more programming effort), that and more animation or larger games than the single load C64 games. (with larger carts) Of course, the onboard sound was more limited, but obviously with better funding and higher volumes, you'd have seen a lot more on-cart sound chips, let alone other custom enhancement chips or more use of RAM expansion.

 

Atari Corp did surprisingly well under the circumstances with some 3.77 million 7800 consoles sold from 1986 to 1990 (the vast majority sold in 1987 and 1988 wth a sharp decline in '89 and under 100k sold in 1990). Of course, Atari Inc would have been in a FAR better position than Atari Corp was across the board. (probably even for computers)

 

Atari Inc in early 1984 had been in a great position to build up the 7800 (though one could argue they could have stuck with the 5200 or pushed the A8 computers more) and rebuild their market position in general. In late 1983, Atari Inc had gotten James Morgan as its new CEO, and by early 1994 he was making strides in turning the bloated and conflicted company around into a lean and efficient operation with his NATCO plans (New Atari COmpany). In early '84, after a hostile takeover attempt by Rupert Murdoch, Warner (parent of Atari Inc) was advised by a consulting firm to sell Atari Inc (heavily in debt due to the crash), and that alone wouldn't have halted Morgan's efforts. However, by mid 1984, Warner had failed to close any sales with prospective buyers and got desperate and made the radical decision to liquidate the company with an offer to Jack Tramiel (among the previous prospective buyers to turn Warner down) to split the company and sell him the consumer division (consoles, computers, and related assets, properties, and facilities) while Warner would keep the arcade division as the new Atari Games Corp and were thus willing to offer a much more favorable sale deal to Tramiel than the original offer for the whole company. (not sure what the original offer was, but the split involved Warner selling the company with promissory notes -IOUs or loans- which Tramiel would pay back over time; part of the deal also put Warner with a considerable stake in Atari Corp stock)

So Tramiel's company (Trammel Technologies LTD) had the Atari consumer division folded into it and became renamed Atari Corp. (as part of the liquidation, Warner laid off all Atari consumer staff and left it up to Tramel and Co interview and sort through staff to hire for positions at TTL/Atari Corp)

 

That transition alone wasn't the biggest problem in the least unfortunately; through the entire negotiations with TTL (which only lasted a couple days, if that), Warner had never made Atari Inc staff (even the CEO, Morgan) aware of the deal, let alone involved any of the upper management in negotiations. Morgan was literally brought-in at the last minute to sign over the company for liquidation, and to make all of that worse (perfect storm fashion), those negotiations took place over 4th of July weekend with hapless staff coming back to discover they soddenly had no longer had jobs. (usually without a remotely coherent explanation and a general air of chaos and anarchy) No negotiations or planning for a transition with Atari management, not proper notification to staff of layoffs, nothing. (and on top of that, a rather vague and sloppy definition of what Tramiel had actually bought -leading to quite a few conflicts)

 

Thus, even under the best circumstances on Tramiel's end in handling the transition, he (and TTL management) was left in a horrible position with Atari's consumer division that totally destroyed Morgan's reorganization efforts and caused considerable delays for any work that was eventually continued from Atari Inc. On top of that, they ended up in legal disputes over Atari Games (Atari Corp had been given the rights to all Arcade games released by Atari Inc and Atari Games contended that issue) which ruined any possibility for good working relations with them until the early 90s. (even then it was purely business without any collaboration)

And on top of all that, you had Warner contending ownership of the 7800 contract and requiring Atari Corp to pay after the fact for GCC's contractual R&D (MARIA and the launch game development). You also had the loss of critical staff related to ongoing advanced computer projects and apparently some documents and hardware "walking off" in the heat of the mess. (whatever the case, Atari Corp ended up not being able to use Atari Inc's extensive developments in a high-end 16-bit computer chipset and Unix based OS and GUI intended for that system or the Amiga based system planned)

So you had tons of problems, some rectified later, some not at all, and all of which should have been addressed with proper negotiations and planning between Warner, Atari Inc, and TTL back at the beginning of July in 1984. (even if Tramiel had still opted to considerably downsize staff even beyond what Morgan planned and ended up losing all the console game programmers and much of the computer programmers, they still could have been much better off than they were at the time with a clean transition and no contention over the 7800 or Atari Games, little to no delay with the 7800, possibly moving forward with ST sooner and/or making use of the Atari Inc computer hardware/software developments, being more profitable and better funded earlier on with a stronger market position for both games and computers, etc, etc -and eventually enough funding to potentially rebuilt strong in-house software development)

 

And there you go, that's pretty much the situation that Atari Corp was in and why, leaving out how/why Atari Inc got to their height and collapse and not addressing other decisions made after Atari Corp was established that could have changed things. (most of the latter has already been addressed in recent threads -this one and a couple others)

 

 

PS...Kool Kitty, I got no idea how you learned so much about the industry during that time, but you really seem to know your stuff and put it out in a very easy to read way. Write a book already!

I'm just a tech and history geek and a fast learner when I've got a strong interest. Most of the detailed Atari history stuff has come from Curt and Marty's post on Atariage. (if you want a book, keep a look out for when they publish their collection of Atari history books -and keep a look out for any history related threads posted by Curt Vendel or Marty -wgungfu- and updates on Atarimuseum -which is overdue for updates, unfortunately)

 

The rest comes from various tech discussions and online articles and leaked documentation. (I'm not a programmer for any of these systems by any stretch -at least not yet- but have a decent enough understanding for many of them at the high-level hardware and software side of things)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe I missed something, but why were Atari arcade games such as "Marble Madness", "Paperboy" and "Gauntlet" on the NES, but not the Atari 7800? Atari couldn't port their own games to their own console?

 

No because as already said about a million times here Atari Games (Tengen) and Atari Corp. (Tramiels) were seperate companies so they had to pay to license such games like they would with anyone else.

 

Okay, so then they couldn't afford or they didn't think it was worthwhile to pay to license those games. Makes sense. Thanks.

That, and as above, Atari Corp and Atari Games were at odds over the Atari Inc arcade game licenses and Atari name/logo that hurt relations considerably and many Atari games less likely to favorably license any games to Atari Corp. (let alone develop for them as a 2nd/3rd party)

 

Had the split been managed properly, there would have been a very real chance for good relations between the two companies (incentives of PR/brand name, shared hardware and software both ways, etc), though it would have depended on cooperation of Atari Corp and Games management as well. (any realistic chance of that was ruined by the sloppy split)

Edited March 11, 2011 by kool kitty89

[kool kitty89]

It takes money to make money. How much per cartridge would it have been for Atari to release Paperboy, Gauntlet, etc. on the 7800? Nintendo paid the fees and thus was able to sell more product (consoles and cartridges). While Atari seemed to slink off to the corner, licking its wounds. I know I'm playing armchair CEO here, but if I had been running Atari, I'd have done things way differently -- better gamepads, more titles, etc..

Nope, you're talking like Nintendo made/commissioned/licensed all those games, they made 3rd parties PAY them for publishing on their system (except a few -like Tengen or Codemasters- who went unlicensed).

Those 3rd parties not only had to take all the initiative to develop those games, but had to pay for cart production as well as royalties to Nintendo AND deal with the headaches of Nintendo's requirement for all production to be handled by themselves (Nintendo set the quantities and delivery dates regardless of the publishers needs and was known for playing favorites with certain developers)

On top of that, in the NES era, Nintendo applied monopolistic contracts that prevented any publisher from releasing any game they published for the NES to any other game console (computers were OK) for 2 years after the NES game's release and further that any single publisher could not release more than 2 NES games in 1 year without Nintendo's express clearance for further releases. (both of those were gotten around by some large companies using proxy publishers like Konami's Ultra or Acclaim's LJN)

 

That's how most console manufacturers (post crash) have made their money, some from 1st party software, but usually the bulk from royalties off 3rd parties. (of course, other than Nintendo, most console manufacturers aren't nearly as inflexible and have never pushed the monopolistic contracts after Nintendo was compelled to relinquish them in the early 90s due to litigation concerns and mounting competition)

 

 

And how did Nintendo mange to get such support in spite of all the restrictions: similar to how Atari Inc managed it in the late 70s in the US, they were the first to successfully market/manage a cart based game console in their home country (the Famicom in 1983 was the first in Japan and took off somewhat like Atari's VCS in the late 70s but a bit faster and with Nintendo establishing licensing for 3rd parties with royalties to Nintendo bolstering profits). So Nintendo in Japan with the FC was in a similar position in 1986 as Atari with the 2600 in 1980 (SMB was sort of Nintendo's counterpart to Space Invaders too) except they already had strong 3rd party development and a functioning licensing infrastructure that more or less constrained Japanese console publishers to releasing for Nintendo while paying Nintendo for that privilege.

 

Nintendo had the funding and position to push both strong software (which they had 3 years worth of to choose from) and powerful marketing in the US with their 1986 launch and following holiday sales season, and then followed that up by expanding that same licensing to US publishers and binding them to Nintendo as well. (so not only would Nintendo's popularity attract publishers, but those publishers would be prevented -or greatly restricted- from working on competing platforms and would all the while be paying Nintendo for the privilege!)

 

 

The crash, weak market in the US with only Atari Corp really being active (Intev was even weaker and the CV was poorly managed after Coleco dumped it), it was open for new competition like never would have been possible up through 1983. Likewise, the home computer boom had settled down and people were again opening up to game consoles over computers.

Sega was their main competition in Japan up to 1987 (with the PC Engine hitting big), but they were barely noticeable on the Japanese home market and in spite of initially stronger marketing funds and reasonably competitive software in the US, Sega failed to effectively manage the SMS in the US market, especially in the critical 1986/87 period. (mainly due to Nintendo's marketing/management) And even Sega had the advantage of having the SMS out in 1985 in Japan with existing software development and not aged titles like the 7800 had to work with at launch.

 

 

So Nintendo had an initial advantage due to Japan and the hard times of the US game market and built on that, putting up more and more barriers to competition as then expanded.

Edited March 11, 2011 by kool kitty89

[Retro Rogue]

Maybe I missed something, but why were Atari arcade games such as "Marble Madness", "Paperboy" and "Gauntlet" on the NES, but not the Atari 7800? Atari couldn't port their own games to their own console?

 

No because as already said about a million times here Atari Games (Tengen) and Atari Corp. (Tramiels) were seperate companies so they had to pay to license such games like they would with anyone else.

 

Okay, so then they couldn't afford or they didn't think it was worthwhile to pay to license those games. Makes sense. Thanks.

 

 

 

Two issues - Nintendo's lock-in and issues with Atari Games themselves. Atari Games and Atari Corp. were in litigation for most of that time over patents and such, and didn't have the best relationship. By the time it got a bit more amicable ('88-'89) those titles were either licensed out already for the NES or claimed by Atari Games' Tengen division. And by the time in '89-'90 that Nintendo eased up on the lock in policies, it was already far to late for the 7800 of course. They did manage to do a few Atari Games licensed policies at that time though, and those licenses were funded with stock promises (a Trameil favorite).

[atarilovesyou]

Hmmm...intrigue, I say!

 

I'm beginning to see the big picture...whereas I still don't think that Nintendo's 'unfair' practices were what caused the main issue, it certainly didn't help that 3rd party guys couldn't make games for Atari systems (at least the newer games).

 

I guess that you kinda have a situation today where you have essentially a free marketplace for the consoles...I mean, you can get pretty much any game on the either Xbox or PS3, with some exceptions. And in the end...what does this mean for the consumer? What does it mean for gaming in general?

 

I think I prefer the way it happened back in the day, as I think of certain CONSOLES with their slew of games, rather than the games themselves. You knew what you were gonna get with Sega...Nintendo...and Atari.

 

I'm not so sure I would have enjoyed those days if 'all' games were available on 'all' systems. I mean, the C64 versions of Data East games, for example, are crud compared to the NES versions (my opinion of course). And virtually all Atari versions of games were superior to the Intellivision, and BOTH were crap compared to Colecovision versions. Back then, as a gamer, we all were looking for that 'best' system...and for me, the NES was pretty much it for the time. And by the time that arcades became irrelevant not long after...well, I guess I just lost interest in the newer consoles for the most part.

 

I'm glad I was around to experience those days!

[+wood_jl]

I'm surprised at all the childish hating of inanimate/defunct consoles.

 

 

I love the Atari stuff (what's this site called?) but hating the NES is just plain silly. Hate fascist dictators or something.

 

I don't love the Nintendo company, and I was prejudiced against the NES when it came out, for a long time. However, since I got one for $10 and games for $2/each, it's still fun to play Arkanoid, Punch Out, RC Pro Am, Super Sprint, the Mario games, and the light gun games. Whether or not Nintendo are a bunch of pricks and maintain/maintained prick-like practices, these games are fun. I don't own a Wii and although I have all the Nintendo systems prior to the Wii, I never bought anything new, and everything was cheap, so Nintendo never got my money. All that's left are a few fun games. What's to hate?

[jd_1138]

What's to hate?

 

That it took my brother and I 3 days of grinding away to finally beat Iron Mike in Punch Out?!?!

[Tubular Gearhead]

I'm surprised at all the childish hating of inanimate/defunct consoles.

 

 

I love the Atari stuff (what's this site called?) but hating the NES is just plain silly. Hate fascist dictators or something.

 

I don't love the Nintendo company, and I was prejudiced against the NES when it came out, for a long time. However, since I got one for $10 and games for $2/each, it's still fun to play Arkanoid, Punch Out, RC Pro Am, Super Sprint, the Mario games, and the light gun games. Whether or not Nintendo are a bunch of pricks and maintain/maintained prick-like practices, these games are fun. I don't own a Wii and although I have all the Nintendo systems prior to the Wii, I never bought anything new, and everything was cheap, so Nintendo never got my money. All that's left are a few fun games. What's to hate?

 

Pretty damn reasonable post. I understand the point you are making that so much time has gone by, and when the games are fun and the hardware is capable, what's not to hate?

 

But for me (and others I assume), when I sit down to play a game, it brings back all kinds of memories and I like to think about the not just the game, but all the history and background. It makes me happy to be involved with all these systems in a capacity that I could not when I was a kid. I have one or more of almost every popular system from back in the day, but I don't have a single Nintendo system, because I know that for me, I couldn't sit down and enjoy a game or start collecting Nintendo stuff without being able to separate what is happening now from all the past feelings I have for them.

 

I know I was just a kid/young adult at the time, but back then I really was aware of how much everyone seemed to jump on the Nintendo bandwagon and forget all things Atari. At that time, I had been heavily involved in the 400/800's for years and it seemed that the Nintendo juggernaut was even reaching out and affecting how much support anything (not just the consoles) Atari received.

 

And I understand that when you really look at the circumstances and dates that everything happened, history becomes more clear, but all I can say is that there seemed to be time when all of a sudden, the only thing out there was Nintendo-

 

No one cared about Atari anymore.

 

About the only thing in your post that I can't claim is that Nintendo never got my money. I did buy a SNES when they came out (around 1990/91?), and sold it about two weeks later because after playing Mario world or whatever it came with, it seemed like nothing had changed and it was just too kid oriented for me... I turned right around and bought a TG16 so I could play Splatterhouse and clean my palate.

Edited March 11, 2011 by Tubular Gearhead

[mbd30]

Geez. If "Super Mario World" seemed too kiddie then you could have played "Super Castlevania IV", "Super Ghouls n Ghosts", "Super Metroid", "Contra III", etc. Too bad you gave up on SNES after only playing that one game.

[The_Laird]

Personally I have never owened a Nintendo machine, apart from the Gameboy I have with a few games that somebody gave me and sits in a draw somewhere. But I have always know people who owned them so got to plenty of the games. I have yet to find one game on any of the Nintendo machines that has made me think I must have that console for that game.

[DracIsBack]

Too bad you gave up on SNES after only playing that one game.

 

I admit it. When it came to childish hatred, I had it for the SNES. Part of it was anger over Nintendo's bully tactics during the NES era and how they impacted my 7800 and SMS back in the day. Part of it was just a general dislike of really hyped things. Part of it was because I considered Nintendo arrogant and was glad Sega was kicking them off their high horse. Plus, I considered the SNES kind of a technical joke relative to the amount of time they had to improve. For a system 2 years newer, I was kind of underwhelmed at what Nintendo churned out.

 

Reality though is I missed out on some pretty awesome games. When Nintendo's feeling the heat, they really put their games departments to work. And Sega was a NASTY competitor at that time and threatened to take it all away! :-) I'll have to get an SNES soon ...

[mbd30]

"Plus, I considered the SNES kind of a technical joke relative to the amount of time they had to improve. For a system 2 years newer, I was kind of underwhelmed at what Nintendo churned out."

 

IMO, the cream of the SNES crop such as "Secret of Mana" and "Super Metroid" still holds up well today.

 

Whatever the SNES lacked in horsepower under the hood, it was more than made up for by the brilliant art direction of those who developed the best games for the system. They made the SNES look and sound like a million bucks. I love the Sega Genesis, but I tend to not replay games after I beat them. Whereas I can go through eg. "Super Metroid" over and over because the atmosphere created by the audio/visuals combined with the exploration aspect just sucks me in. And I'm far from a Nintendo fanboy.

Edited March 11, 2011 by mbd30

[kool kitty89]

Two issues - Nintendo's lock-in and issues with Atari Games themselves. Atari Games and Atari Corp. were in litigation for most of that time over patents and such, and didn't have the best relationship. By the time it got a bit more amicable ('88-'89) those titles were either licensed out already for the NES or claimed by Atari Games' Tengen division. And by the time in '89-'90 that Nintendo eased up on the lock in policies, it was already far to late for the 7800 of course. They did manage to do a few Atari Games licensed policies at that time though, and those licenses were funded with stock promises (a Trameil favorite).

Of course, Tengen had totally defined Nintendo's licensing soon after they started publishing (went with the Rabbit chip). That led to legal problems with Nintendo, but should still have meant Tengen was open to publishing on Atari and Sega consoles. (again, ironic that AGames went the costly route of reverse engineering when others opted for the simpler/cheaper and legally foolproof voltage spiking)

 

That and Nintendo's normal licensing contracts didn't prevent developers/publishers from licensing their games to other 3rd party publishers (ie you could publish under a different label) and the only thing limiting that would have been Nintendo's unofficial underhanded tactics. (and general funding or interest from Atari Corp or other 3rd parties to invest in licensing those games)

 

Cases where Nintendo had actually arranged for full exclusive rights to be on their console (like Tetris) would be quite different from simple 3rd party licensing agreements. (AFIK, officially, all Nintendo licensees were free to license their games to other publishers, but couldn't publish themselves for cross-platform games)

 

Atari Games ended up licensing several of its games to other 3rd party publishers too as with Gauntlet II. (in some cases with Tengen label versions as well as with Indiana Jones)

 

 

 

However, since I got one for $10 and games for $2/each, it's still fun to play Arkanoid, Punch Out, RC Pro Am, Super Sprint, the Mario games, and the light gun games. Whether or not Nintendo are a bunch of pricks and maintain/maintained prick-like practices, these games are fun. I don't own a Wii and although I have all the Nintendo systems prior to the Wii, I never bought anything new, and everything was cheap, so Nintendo never got my money. All that's left are a few fun games. What's to hate?

We usually bought everything used too with the exception of the NES back in 1990 (might have been a gift) and some of those games, a couple N64 games, and a few CG/handheld/wii games here and there. (the Wii we got new too for a variety of reasons I won't go into right now -though in hindsight we definitely shouldn't have upgraded the Twilight Princess preorder to Wii)

Albeit it wasn't all budget stuff given we were buying used in the active life (or at least late gen life) of those systems. (SNES in late '96, GB in 1997 iirc, N64 late '99, GC in late '03 I think)

 

Disliking actions of a company and disliking a platform in general (or their games) are different things.

I don't like some things many companies have done, but that doesn't stop me from at least considering their games. (especially in hindsight)

 

 

If you really want to enjoy any system's library from the likes of the VCS/NES/SNES/Genesis/PSX/N64/PS2/etc where they're hundreds (if not thousands) of games to go through, you really need to dig past the most obvious games to those that were either niche and less popular or simply forgotten in general (even if they were fairly common).

At home, we had a rather odd collection less than a dozen games in the early 90s, but many are games that you didn't hear of often then or now outside of collectors or retro fans while we had rather few of the common ones other than the pack-in mario multicart and Zelda. (back then we had the likes of Air Fortress -one of my Dad's favorites, Quattro Adventure, Xexyz, Top Gun the 2nd mission, Ghostbudters 2, and a few others that ranged from less popular or forgotten to truly obscure -need to look through the collection again)

No Mega Man games, no Mario sequels, no Castlevania, no Contra, etc.

 

 

Geez. If "Super Mario World" seemed too kiddie then you could have played "Super Castlevania IV", "Super Ghouls n Ghosts", "Super Metroid", "Contra III", etc. Too bad you gave up on SNES after only playing that one game.

For any platform with a huge library (as I mentioned above), you need to actually try to look through the wealth of games available.

 

With systems with limited libraries (especially the likes of the 5200, 7800, Jaguar, 32x or such with under 100 games each), you can get an idea pretty quickly whether there's at least one game that makes it worth owning to play on (depending on the amount you're willing to spend or other collector value). I for one can say there's games that I like on all of those above, but I may not end up collecting for all of those for other reasons. (Jag mainly because of how expensive its getting -understandable given the very low production run)

 

 

Personally I have never owened a Nintendo machine, apart from the Gameboy I have with a few games that somebody gave me and sits in a draw somewhere. But I have always know people who owned them so got to plenty of the games. I have yet to find one game on any of the Nintendo machines that has made me think I must have that console for that game.

How hard have you tried? Have you talked to people (or had friends) savvy in the wide breadth of games available on the NES?

 

I've always had a bias against the PSX and PS2 (for a variety of reasons -more so after I learned more about Sony), but I can't deny that there's a lot of great games (exclusives at that) that I like on those systems. (though I can't say that I'd have enjoyed either more than what we got out -and are still getting out- of our N64 and Gamecube from those generations -being late gen adapters we also never had to deal with software shortages, especially for used games which were tended towards)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hmmm...intrigue, I say!

 

I'm beginning to see the big picture...whereas I still don't think that Nintendo's 'unfair' practices were what caused the main issue, it certainly didn't help that 3rd party guys couldn't make games for Atari systems (at least the newer games).

If you want people to blame most it would have to be Warner for screwing up the sale/split and Nintendo for their illegal policies (official and unofficial) that they ended up getting away with.

 

Atari Corp made some of their own mistakes, but on the whole, managed things pretty well under the circumstances. (at least up until Sam Tramiel took over and Michael Katz left)

 

 

I guess that you kinda have a situation today where you have essentially a free marketplace for the consoles...I mean, you can get pretty much any game on the either Xbox or PS3, with some exceptions. And in the end...what does this mean for the consumer? What does it mean for gaming in general?

To some extent that's true, but it's also a case where barriers to entry are extremely high due to all the major competition being massive corporations that are bigger than ever and willing to take substantial losses to stay competitive. (smaller companies would have gone bankrupt with the huge mistakes made with the 360 early on and all the cache MS was bleeding -the original Xbox had some of those problems too with the margins MS was pushing, but not as extreme as the 360's hardware issues as well as selling at a loss for the first few years)

 

You also have a lot of exclusive games still and temporary exclusive games that still make the systems selling points. (even for used buyers, a game that's released earlier and sells better will thus show up more readily on the used market)

 

NEC was the first megacorp to enter the consoel market, but luckily for Nintendo and (especially) Sega, they had no idea what they were doing when they brought it to the west. (had they managed things more like Sony some 5 years later, NEC very well may have dominated the US and possibly European markets in the 4th/16-bit generation) Likewise the 3DO could have been really huge if a tight/exclusive partnership had been made with Panasonic and a normal licensing/market model had been used with hardware configured as low-cost as possible and sold at cost (or a loss as Sony pushed) with profits made through software licensing. (barring assembly language low-level software optimization and forcing developers to only use 3DO's tools also hurt the quality of games -the high level support was great, but limiting developer to that alone was a bad move)

 

Sony came in as an even bigger company with even bigger advantages and good management/marketing (with willingness to dump tons of cash up front) and swept the market in a perfect storm where all the competition had also made some major mistakes. (those mistakes normally could have been recoverable, but Sony left no room for error -and induced some of those mistakes too by the sheer upset they made on the market)

 

 

I think I prefer the way it happened back in the day, as I think of certain CONSOLES with their slew of games, rather than the games themselves. You knew what you were gonna get with Sega...Nintendo...and Atari.

With Sega and Nintendo, you had a ton of crossover though. Granted, you had trends where certain developers had better versions on one than the other (EA's stuff was usually better on the Genesis than SNES), but in spite of the general perception differences and differences in 1st party software (to some extent), both Sega and Nintendo platforms have a huge range of crossover in terms of genres and content with some stronger on one than the other. (SHMUPs and sports games were usually better on the Genesis, RPGs and adventure games were somewhat more prevalent on the SNES -unless you were in Europe where Nintendo and most JP 3rd parties refused to release them but Sega released pretty much all of them as they had in the US)

 

Sega had lots of "kiddie" games, or family friendly games in general and some of the best Disney games of the generation (or ever) which was a huge selling point for some gamers back then. (Castle of Illusion was also one of the most promoted games of 1990) And a lot of those were 1st party games too.

Sega even developed/published the likes of Crystal Pony Tales. (Sega of America at that)

 

Nintendo DID have the censorship issues in the west and that had been established as a marketing tool in the early days of the NES (resulting from complains on the likes of Pro Wrestling), but in spite of their resistance to adding ratings and removing censorship, they eventually conceded and all the late gen SNES games had ratings with potential to be far from "kid friendly". (yet Nintendo still managed to retain that family friendly image to this day, even when one of their bestselling games was a FPS -Goldeneye on the N64- or when Zelda -oot- actually had blood in it -more so on the early western revisions- they actually managed to get the mass market impression of being even more kiddie than previously )

 

Of course, Sega (more so the 3rd parties) had a fair amount of censorship on the Genesis as well, but it wasn't mandated by Sega themselves as such. (mostly common sense, or playing it safe for political correctness -like Capcom's "whitwashed" SFII SCE intro compared to the arcade and Japanese Megadrive version)

 

 

I for one don't care if a game is serious or kiddie or whatever, as long as it has good gameplay that I like and decent to good art design (for any of a variety of styles) and decent sound/music, I'm quite welling to sit down and play it. (the actual genre and style of gameplay matters more to me in general)

 

 

I'm not so sure I would have enjoyed those days if 'all' games were available on 'all' systems. I mean, the C64 versions of Data East games, for example, are crud compared to the NES versions (my opinion of course). And virtually all Atari versions of games were superior to the Intellivision, and BOTH were crap compared to Colecovision versions. Back then, as a gamer, we all were looking for that 'best' system...and for me, the NES was pretty much it for the time. And by the time that arcades became irrelevant not long after...well, I guess I just lost interest in the newer consoles for the most part.

That's an issue even with today's games (though as hardware gets more similar and the same programmers/developers handle the same games -rather than licensing them to others- they get more and more equal, but there's tons of exceptions even today).

There's a lot of factors from the benefits of strong competition to quality/capabilities of developers to hardware capabilities to 1st vs 3rd party publishers, etc. (the Wii is obviously a big gap as such given it's basically a last generation console -hardware wise- but otherwise, last generation had a much wider range of differences from Dreamcast to PS2 to GC to Xbox -let alone PC games- for a variety of reasons -the most fundamental being ease of programming and technical limitations, or the PS2's sheer popularity if you go by number of games and exclusives)

 

The issue with the Data East games you mention would almost certainly be nothing more than programming skill (albeit the C64 has obvious limitations compared to the NES, but should have been capable of reasonably competitive versions of most -if not all- NES games, at least if the disks weren't limited to single loads -64k is pretty small compared to most NES games)

 

With the SNES, Genesis, and even TG-16/PCE, you had hardware that was close enough that many games could have transitioned pretty well between the 3 with trade-offs. (with good sound/graphics optimization in each case, all 3 would be pretty competitive though -even with the PCE/TG's single hardware BG layer and more limited sound generation it had advantages even over the SNES with a more powerful CPU, more flexible updates to VRAM, more subpalettes and thus more flexible color use -but a much smaller master palette- etc)

It's not like the massive range of technical differences the NES/SMS/7800 had (1983/85/84 released hardware), but as always, it was most heavily a matter of development support (1st and 3rd party), marketing/management, and consumer interest. (the PCE was huge in Japan, especially the CD format, far bigger than Sega's Megadrive though the Super Famicom still had some 60% of the market share for the generation)

 

If it hadn't been for the numerous 2nd/3rd party favoritism seen in the 4th gen, it would have been even more even: as it is, you saw a lot of similar genres cross-platform (even more if you include games that weren't released internationally), but you simply didn't see versions of the exact same games cross-platform as such due to developers focusing on one platform more than the other. (you saw a lot of that too though) Sometimes you had games of the same name that were totally different (Sparkster on the SNES is a totally different game than the Genesis one) or games developed by totally different companies like Batman and Robbin or Aladdin (Virgin vs Capcom -the virgin game was on the Genesis, Amiga, PC and a couple others iirc, Capcom was an SNES exclusive).

 

Some companies did push cross-platform stuff, but favored one company more than the other. (Capcom had a lot on the Genesis -some licensed and developed by Sega, others published by Capcom- but they favored Nintendo overall as with Konami) Capcom even released a compilation of MegaMan 1, 2, and 3 with enhanced graphics and sound on the Genesis, albeit rather late in its life. (and for whatever reason it ended up as a Segachannel exclusive in the US) I think the Mega Man game on the Game Gear is a fair bit more common though. (that was licensed by Freestyle though)

 

 

It's up to the 3rd parties to make those decisions on how to develop and publish as such with varying motivation. (good relationships with the console companies being factors in that too)

 

But in any case, what I was getting at is that Nintendo prevented that freedom of independent management with 3rd parties. Sony later managed to make the PSX very attractive to developers and occasionally used their corporate funding to buy up exclusivity out buy out 3rd parties, and while that was pushing resources that the competition really couldn't match, Sony wasn't preventing competition in general. (interesting to note that they had quite a few in-house games -especiallg from Psygnosis- that actually got released on competing systems -though they always got early releases on Sony platforms, but were sometimes better on competing systems like some of the Wipeout games on the Saturn or N64 playing better, looking better, or having more features -like Wipeout 64's 4 player splitscreen mode)

Sony pushed a lot of anticompetitive tactics too, but more relying on their massive funding and avoiding actual illegal operations. (though the price dumping came close to that, they couldn't really be attacked on international grounds since they were dumping the Japanese units well below cost as well -that hurt Sega the most since they chose to match the prices with their somewhat more expensive hardware -that was even more costly to manufacture since they lacked the vertical integration of Sony- while Nintendo consistently managed to push out cheaper hardware that could be sold at or above cost and still be competitive -plus Nintendo had been generating surpluses for years and had substantial savings in reserve to work with while Sega's assets were mainly invested in non liquid capital)

Edited March 11, 2011 by kool kitty89

[kool kitty89]

I admit it. When it came to childish hatred, I had it for the SNES. Part of it was anger over Nintendo's bully tactics during the NES era and how they impacted my 7800 and SMS back in the day. Part of it was just a general dislike of really hyped things. Part of it was because I considered Nintendo arrogant and was glad Sega was kicking them off their high horse. Plus, I considered the SNES kind of a technical joke relative to the amount of time they had to improve. For a system 2 years newer, I was kind of underwhelmed at what Nintendo churned out.

It's technically impressive hardware for the time, but given they had 2 years not only to compile advanced hardware, but to (potentially) focus on producing a well-balanced design that bested the PCE and Megadrive in most/all aspects while adding more and aiming at being highly cost effective, the SNES's design is certainly disappointing and filled with bad trade-offs, especially in hindsight.

 

--The costly sound system was almost certainly the most wasteful -very advanced and powerful, but extremely wasteful in how it was actually used where the likes of Ricoh's much simpler 8 channel PCM synth chip would have done about as well overall or a mix of FM synth and PCM chips -maybe even simple amiga-like DMA sound on top of an off the shelf yamaha chip, especialy given how much of the SNES's samples ended up being FM stuff. (and often lower quality due to being sampled)

 

Configuring the memory interface as they did and limiting the CPU to 2.68 MHz was pretty obviously the worst cost cutting trade-off in the system, a slow ROM interface (at least optional) would have made sense, but locking DRAM interface to the CPU at 2.68 MHz was a major bottleneck (so much so that late gen games had to avoid using RAM to boost performance once 3.58 MHz carts were in use). It seems like bad planning since Nintendo really should have been able to run the CPU at 7.16 MHz in RAM of the same variety of the Lynx's DRAM and thus smoke the PCE's CPU (similar instruction set, but slower logic) and beat the 68000 in the MD for many things too, at least with decent programmers. (as it is, the PCE's CPU has an advantage over the MD in a number of cases) Hell, proper memory interfacing probably would have doubled performance when working in ROM too (ie 2.68 MHz early gen games would be 5.37 MHz and later 7.16 MHz); I'm not positive, but I think the main issue was the 650x's 1/2 cycle memory timing and lack of added external/internal logic to facilitate full single cycle accesses as NEC/Hudson did and some other 650x platforms. (I think the Lynx and perhaps some older 8-bit computers did that -though I think the old NMOS 650x had accesses natively closer to a full cycle already with the CMOS models changing things)

---

 

Reality though is I missed out on some pretty awesome games. When Nintendo's feeling the heat, they really put their games departments to work. And Sega was a NASTY competitor at that time and threatened to take it all away! :-) I'll have to get an SNES soon ...

Not just the 1st party stuff either, but the massive amounts of 3rd party games available on the system. (sometimes you had better versions of games on the Genesis, sometimes worse, but the real reason is for all the 1st and 3rd party exclusives or conversions with so many modifications that they're distinct games)

 

The same for the Genesis for those who only had an SNES back then, or the TG-16 for that matter (much more so as a collector for all the japanese -especially CD- games that didn't come over). Or many other platforms, but the PCE is a neat one since it got massive support but was obscure outside of Japan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Plus, I considered the SNES kind of a technical joke relative to the amount of time they had to improve. For a system 2 years newer, I was kind of underwhelmed at what Nintendo churned out."

 

IMO, the cream of the SNES crop such as "Secret of Mana" and "Super Metroid" still holds up well today.

 

Whatever the SNES lacked in horsepower under the hood, it was more than made up for by the brilliant art direction of those who developed the best games for the system. They made the SNES look and sound like a million bucks. I love the Sega Genesis, but I tend to not replay games after I beat them. Whereas I can go through eg. "Super Metroid" over and over because the atmosphere created by the audio/visuals combined with the exploration aspect just sucks me in. And I'm far from a Nintendo fanboy.

It undoubtedly had technical advantages over the competition, but the point is that it truly was/is technically unimpressive as a total design for a system Nintendo had 2 years (or 3 over the PC Engine) advantage over, not just for new technology, but for general optimization for a clean design. (especially given how outstanding the Famicom's hardware was for 1983)

The Master System was more impressive for a 2 year leap in that regard, though still critically weaker in some areas. (granted it was more cost effective in some areas -single bus cart design- and had to cater to backwards compatibility -the only really disappointing aspect was the weak onboard sound, the same bare bones SN97489 of the TI/99 or Colecovision compared to the NES's onboard hardware with arguable superiority over the SID and more so if you included all the Japanese sound expansions -though, aside from Nintendo's DPCM, those were all gnerally less powerful than the YM2413 Sega offered as a one-time add-on . . . odd that they didn't release the add-on or the upgraded SMS in the US or Europe in spite of both regions having much greater success in Japan -much more for Europe)

 

The color and art design are the things the SNES made easiest (something also easier on the PCE than the MD and somewhat easier than the SNES in regards to sheer subpalette flexibility).

The inflexibility of the sprite engine (128 sprites and up to 64x64 pixels, but only allowing 2 sizes on screen and having many fewer selections of sizes than the Genesis's 8/16/24/32 high/wide options though I think close to the PCE's selection -but the PCE didn't have the limits of only 2 sizes), and that's why you didn't usually see the SNES pushing sprites more than the MD even though it had more on screen and per scanline and larger max sizes. (it was better than the X68000's engine which was basically like the SNES if you only used 16x16 sprites -32 per scanline or 512 pixels, 128 on screen)