what innovations has nintendo really brought the industry?

[Retro Rogue]

Isn't Atari's first great console and last great console one in the same? And I don't mean the Jaguar. Haw Haw!

 

No, that would be home PONG. The 2600 was their second "great console".

[MindController]

Isn't Atari's first great console and last great console one in the same? And I don't mean the Jaguar. Haw Haw!

 

No, that would be home PONG. The 2600 was their second "great console".

 

 

....And last "great console".

[high voltage]

Isn't Atari's first great console and last great console one in the same? And I don't mean the Jaguar. Haw Haw!

 

No, that would be home PONG. The 2600 was their second "great console".

 

 

....And last "great console".

 

Well, no the 5200 Supersystem was a breakthrough excellent console, 4-payer, analogue controls, excellent updated versions of existing titles (something Nintendo picked up upon with Mario, Zelda etc),

great games (not enough games though, crash's to blame for that).

 

Atari 7800 Pro System, MARIA, enough said.

 

Lynx, colour hand-held, again, breakthrough system (left hand control, again, great range of games, hardly any duffs, but outsold by the lesser quality hh, the Game Boy)

 

Atari Jaguar, very innovative English designed console, 64 bit of course (no doubt about that)

 

So all Atari consoles are great consoles by a long shot, and not just updated NESs (SNES), but failure was due to the fact that USA sold itself to Japanese gaming, end of story.

 

Oh yes, XE-GS, well, gotta have one bummer, although a great Atari 8-Bit computer, no less.

Edited September 6, 2010 by high voltage

[misspent_youth]

To pick up on high voltage's comment, I disagree that any of the Atari consoles after the 2600 were 'great'. Don't confuse this with me saying I don't like them, because in some cases I do. They may have been, and probably are high quality machines that deliver good gaming experiences, etc. (I haven't played them all to know), but to me 'great' means more than just a good quality machine. It's something that those outside of industry insiders and users would remember it as notable or worth having. Maybe something that parents remember as the 'it' thing their kids wanted, or was part of popular culture by being in movies or music (that weren't just a targeted ad). Pong and the 2600 certainly qualify, NES, and even the PS1. All the other Atari systems high voltage mentioned were 'also rans' according to this measuring stick, as were the Inty, my fave the Colecovision, and most others. Great machines, sure, but not what will be remembered by anyone other than someone that has played and loved them or worked in the industry.

[MindController]

Isn't Atari's first great console and last great console one in the same? And I don't mean the Jaguar. Haw Haw!

 

No, that would be home PONG. The 2600 was their second "great console".

 

 

....And last "great console".

 

Well, no the 5200 Supersystem was a breakthrough excellent console, 4-payer, analogue controls, excellent updated versions of existing titles (something Nintendo picked up upon with Mario, Zelda etc),

great games (not enough games though, crash's to blame for that).

 

Atari 7800 Pro System, MARIA, enough said.

 

Lynx, colour hand-held, again, breakthrough system (left hand control, again, great range of games, hardly any duffs, but outsold by the lesser quality hh, the Game Boy)

 

Atari Jaguar, very innovative English designed console, 64 bit of course (no doubt about that)

 

So all Atari consoles are great consoles by a long shot, and not just updated NESs (SNES), but failure was due to the fact that USA sold itself to Japanese gaming, end of story.

 

Oh yes, XE-GS, well, gotta have one bummer, although a great Atari 8-Bit computer, no less.

 

 

I apologize then. I originally thought when a game system was considered great, it was not only because of its spectacular sales but also because of how popular it was with consumers. I didn't realize that the Atari Jaguar was a block bluster in terms of units sold or that most people purchased one when it came out.

[Retro Rogue]

I apologize then. I originally thought when a game system was considered great, it was not only because of its spectacular sales but also because of how popular it was with consumers. I didn't realize that the Atari Jaguar was a block bluster in terms of units sold or that most people purchased one when it came out.

 

Which was nothing about what this thread is about. You came in a troll, let's see if you leave like one as well.

[jaybird3rd]

I know I'm late to this, but let me chime in with my two cents ...

 

A lot of this discussion has been about technology, but in my opinion, Nintendo is not a strong technology company. Their hardware has never been that far ahead of the competition, and for every so-called technological "innovation," you can probably find somebody else who really did it first. Maybe Nintendo deserves credit for popularizing the gamepad and other things, but not for inventing them.

 

In my opinion, Nintendo's biggest contribution was recognizing the mistakes that had been made in the video game industry in the years leading up to the crash and implementing policies and procedures which remedied those mistakes, and in the process, helped to revive the video game industry. One of the mistakes they saw that Atari and others had made was designing consoles without any sort of protection for locking out unauthorized third-party software. In a business in which the hardware is sold more or less at cost in the hope that software sales will create most of the profit, an uncontrolled third-party software market hurts the console manufacturers' margins because it steals potential sales, with no royalties. It might help to make the consoles more popular, but it makes them much more unpopular if the third-party product is bad (which a lot of it was during those pre-crash "feeding frenzy" years).

 

Nintendo's methods of controlling the market have been criticized as draconian, but some solution was clearly needed, and theirs was certainly effective. As I understand it, they barred unlicensed developers from creating software for their consoles, they implemented strict quality control, and then they had the developers pay them to manufacture the games. I think their standards for evaluating new product were especially ingenious. As Larry Kaplan described them once (in an interview on Retro Gaming Radio that I heard some years ago), the eight criteria they used were: graphics, sound, playability, replayability, initial impression, documentation, portability, and originality. Each was scored on a scale of one to five, and unless your game got at least an 80% overall score (32 out of 40), you were not allowed to publish it. This allowed them to block bad games, but also non-original games that would have diluted the market with too much "me-too" product.

 

Another contribution, thanks in large part to the work of Shigeru Miyamoto, was the creation of several prominent franchises which helped to popularize video games among new generations of players, and which are still making money for Nintendo decades later. While Nintendo was hooking video game players with fresh ideas like Super Mario Brothers, Metroid, and The Legend of Zelda, Atari was still recycling their classic arcade product (Centipede, Asteroids, etc) on the 7800. I love the 7800 versions of those games, and I have mixed feelings about the transition in the popular culture from American game companies and ideas to Japanese ones, but I think it's clear that Nintendo understood what gamers wanted more than Atari did in the mid-80s. That also played a role in bringing video games back, and in elevating them from a fad to a mainstream segment of the entertainment industry.

[carmel_andrews]

Jaybird...a few thoughts about your points you raised

 

The NES wasn't the first system to have a lock out chip (or authenticating ciruits to use the tech. term), remember the 7800, that featured similar technology and for pretty much the same thing

 

In regards to nintendo's policy on 3rd party software dev./publishing...I think you have to remember that at the time nintendo were 'ressurecting' the gaming market, Atari's focus had changed, prefering instead to concentrate on their computer platforms and reducing the bloated inventory of VG systems it had in numerous warehouses, so Atari, unlike nintendo were'nt prepared in invest in developing more videogames content for the 2600/7800 etc, Atari only started getting back into the videogaming market after the likes of the ST/XE popularity started declining drastically (in the US anyway) and anyway Atari needed an excuse to start concentrating on the US market again and what better way to do it then with a product that the american consumer and atari were already familiar with, unfortyunately, because atari didn't have the dollars to invest in developing or publishing new games content like nintendo did that is why only very little original content was released by atari for the likes of the 7800 (like you said about atari regurgitating centipede, pacman, defender etc unteen million times) and by the time that atari 're-entered' the US market (so to speak) very few American developers/publishers were prepared to supprt any atari gaming platforms, as nintendo by then had collared most of them into restrictive publishing/development contracts

 

Biggest mistake Atari made was with the anti competition court case it had with nintendo in 1992, the mistake atari made was linking/associating nintendo's policy on 3rd party games publishing/development with competition in the wider hardware market place, if atari had simply focused specifically and particularly only on nintendo's policy on 3rd party games publishing/dev. and didn't try linking/associating it to anything else, Atari would have probably won the case hands down

 

It is interesting to note though, it was during this period that nintendo started revising it's policy on 3rd party games publishing/dev. (like not insisting on exclusivity etc)

 

Lest we forget ofcourse that if it wasn't for an out of court settlement between atari and activision, the whole games market and industry would be very different today

Edited September 7, 2010 by carmel_andrews

[kool kitty89]

The only innovation that i can remember nintendo bringing to the industry was it's way of tying up software developers/publishers to writing/programming games content exclusively for nintendo...however, reading between the lines on this, the only part of that which is an 'innovation' is the 'exclusivity' aspect, otherwise it was no different to what companies like atari/sega were doing in getting companies to publish games content for their offerings (bearing in mind ofcourse that it was an out of court seetlement between atari and activision which ultimately created the concept of and the market for 3rd party videogames publishing and development)

 

Actually, nintendo did several significant things, but I think you've got things confused on the business model issue. Prior to the NES in the US, console manufacturers did NOT want 3rd parties openly publishing games on their platforms, but they had no way to lock them out or restrict them (and thus no means to regulate or enforce licensing), albeit some tried.

Initially, the idea was that ONLY the hardware manufacturer would publish software, but Activision challenged that and won in court which spurred others to do likewise.

Prior to the NES's release (and final design), there was only one other completed console design which had implemented a comprehensive lock-out system iirc, and that was the 7800 using a ROM header (tied to the Atari logo boot screen iirc) which authenticated the game for 7800 mode, otherwise defaulting to 2600 mode. (different from the finicky lockout chip Nintendo used though, but rather similar to what the Master System and Genesis used iirc -albeit early Genesis models lacked it but by ~1991 I think they added TMSS).

The Famicom in Japan had no lockout either, so the only limit to 3rd parties was the documentation/tools for the hardware, just like the 2600.

 

The 7800 was of course delayed due to Warner's sale of Atari Consumer in 1984 and the resulting confusion and legal mess. (much more Warner's fault than Tramiel's -it was Warner who sold without any prior preparation with Atari Inc) So Nintendo ended up being the first to initiate such a licensing system in the US I think, that or Atari Corp, Nintendo, and Sega did so simultaneously in 1986.

They didn't revive the market though, but they did cease it while it revived, and dug-in fast, beating the competition early on, and gaining enough of an edge to start pushing rather restrictive licensing agreements thereafter. (largely due to the weaker competition -Sega's poor marketing and Atari Corp's restricted budget and the fact that other major players had left entirely -and Intev wasn't going to be major Competition either -Nintendo's 3rd party Japanese support was important too, but not a deciding factor until after they'd already gotten established anyway -Europe was a different case though, where Sega managed/delegated things better and Nintendo didn't in many cases)

 

 

The biggest thing Nintendo probably ever did in its history as a video game company, or in the worldwide industry in general, was almost certainly the introduction of the Famicom in 1983 in Japan: that truly popularized the programmable video game console format in Japan when it hadn't been much prior to that, rather like the VCS in North America. (without it, Japan may have shifted more toward computer gaming or a number of other possibilities -Sega's SG-1000 was likely less attractive than the MSX and you had other computers as well) They came out with some very capable hardware (probably the most advanced home video game hardware on the market anywhere in 1983) and good marketing at what was apparently a critical time as well without any strong existing competition on the console market. (it did immediately follow the MSX's release earlier that Summer)

 

Of course, one could speculate about Atari localizing the VCS earlier rather than waiting until several weeks AFTER the FC and SG-1000 launched in '83 with the repackaged 2800. (1980 or 1981 would have made much more sense -even if they delegated or licenced it to a local distributor... but by '83 even releasing the 5200 made more sense)

 

 

 

 

 

 

What victory....Nintendo just got lucky (i.e being in the right place at the right time)

 

i.e most of the american manufacturers were recovering from the crash (or what was left of them)

Not entirely true: Nintendo did get lucky, but not in that context alone. Key console manufactuers had cut and run rather than riding the crash out (and Coleco and Mattel also botched attempts at entering the home computer market -Coleco in particular given the potential the hardware might have had along with CV compatibility), but what was left was still significant.

Of course Nintendo would have been hard pressed to compete had the crash been avoided entirely, but as it was, you had Atari Corp pushing back in the whole time (and being more successful in 1985 with 2600 sales than Nintendo's largely failed NYC test market -the lack of SMB was obviously significant), and you saw general signs of the market recovering with Sega, Nintendo, and Atari launching full-force into the market (the NES and SMS launched late that Summer and the 7800 a bit earlier -the NES having a gradually expanded test market that spring leading up to the September launch).

But again, the additional problems with the competition were that Atari Corp had a limited marketing budget (especially for entertainment alone) and lacked the in-house software teams of Atari Inc or funds to commission many games from 3rd parties, while Sega had the budget and the software but just screwed up marketing in the critical 1986 and 1987 period. (the later delagated distribution and marketing to Tonka in '88 who definitely seemed to know much more of what they were doing and marketign improved substantially, but by that point Nintendo was entrenched in a position of dominance with an ever tightening grip on 3rd parties)

 

Unfortunately that didn't include any hardware offerings the american manufacturers were offering and gladly lapped up anything that the japanese manufacturers were offering (minus the msx ofcourse)

MSX was never released in the US... so that would be like adding in the SG-1000, PC-8801, etc.

 

And what American manufacturers there were, their futures were uncertain, coleco had the coleco vision put on the BB in favour of the adam and even that wasn't doing good numbers, intellivion had just been bought out by a senior manager at mattel, atari had just been bought out by tramiel and what limited funds he had went into the st and xe (initially) the crown was there for a new leader to take, it could really have been anyone's and nintendo only got there as they got to the US market ahead of sega, had it been the other way around a different story would have ensued

The Adam was canceled well before the NES was launched (or test-marketed for that matter), the C64 was the most competitive gaming platform on the market when consoles started coming back en mass.

 

Adam was botched from the beginning (not offering a bare bones console/breadbox version more competitive with the C64 was a major part of that), but dumping the CV in general was a problem rather than simply pulling way back and riding things out. (biding their time without fully dropping support to see if things might recover -basically handling liquidation of their own stock but putting a positive spin on it for the public and leaving their options open, same for Mattel, especially given what Intev managed to do -the Aquarius was more of a mess than the Adam though, and not even compatible with the IV, granted it had used a rather obscure CPU architecture -I wonder if they could have used the full version of that chip in such a computer and kept IV compatibility)

 

As for Atari, that's not quite right, especially on the XE. Atari was depending on games significantly to support them in the interim, and though the budget was tight (next to no marketing in 1985), sales in '85 prompted them to push out the 2600 and the 7800 (which had been delayed by legal issues with Warner and GCC) and they had a more significant (if limited) push with marketing in '86 onward. (though more focused on print ads than TV) Atari missed their chance to keep the 8-bits in the fight alongside the C64 due to the unfortunate problems in '82 and especially '83, and after that it wasn't likely to really compete on a grand scale, plus they'd mismanaged it in Europe and missed the boat there too -poor 3rd party development support, lack of shift to cater to tape based software, etc. (in '82 you had the problems with the 1200XL and general botched transition to the XL series vs the original sweet 8/16 concept -and a lower cost redesign was a little overdue by then too given when the FCC added the class B classification- but the hold on operations for Morgan's evaluation period in late 1983 killed Atari's games/computer holiday sales and left it wide open for Commodore who'd already been pushing ahead with the price war with TI -ironically that evaluation period was the beginning of a very positive reorganization effort by Morgan, it just started at a very unfortunate time -6 months earlier could have been a world of difference)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ralph Baer claims that he created the concept of Pong before Nolan Bushnell, and even sued to defend his intellectual property.

 

Nope, he sued nobody. Magnavox sued everyone to defend the patents they were licensing from Sanders. And it was never about the concept of Pong, rather the technology. And the Tennis game on the Odyssey wasn't even designed by Ralph it was his partner's, Bill Rusch. The lawsuits were purely about the technology of moving symbols around via a video signal, and providing user interaction with said video generated symbols. As I've said time and again.

and Magnavox also successfully sued (or otherwised enforced royalty agreements) with every other video game manufacturer in North America up to the expiration of said patents. (including Nintendo and several arcade companies -I'm not sure if it also extended to computers using video displays, but I'd imagine so -at least depending how the display was manipulated, maybe not some purely text/character based displays)

 

Far too many people misunderstand that issue... stupid pop-culture generalization of "video game" (hmm, for that matter, does digital video -ie direct digital displays- count as "video" in the original sense even? ie an xbox, PS3, PC, or handheld conecting via HDMI/DVI or a direct connection to the LCD interface -barring examples where the output is actually analog video and the LCD display has analog input with an ADC to convert it -as the Game Gear and Nomad did iirc, and LCD VGA monitors, of course, or analog inputs on LCD/Plasma TVs)

 

Anyway, Maganavox likely would have sued over Computer Space had it actually gotten popular. (which might be the first raster based video arcade game -not sure if Galaxy Game was or not- but at least the first commercially produced video game machine released)

 

You're making accusations that are simply not true, and *I* simply won't stand for that either. Nobody framed Nintendo, nobody put them in the light of thieves - they're not the ones claiming innovation, origination, etc., on these subjects - other people are and have over time and that's what's being discused. What you're trying to portray this discussion and our motivation as is what's completely not accurate, fair, and simply not right - and almost offensive. As an author and historian, I have no motivation in promoting one company over another and I certainly don't let personal likes and dislikes get in the way of accurate research. That would be completely unprofessional. And that's the *only* thing that's motivated me in this or the other discussions. If you can't participate in a discussion on trying to figure out firsts or innovations that belong to Nintendo or others (which has been extremely tame compared to other threads on this forum), without taking offense or trying to spin it the way you are, then maybe you shouldn't participate in said discussions and move on.

This seems to be the primary issue: far too many ignorant fans making blatant assumptions and perpetuating (and expanding) misinformation generated by the rumor mill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every company has had some innovations. Nintendo's just stand out more because they are constantly changing the way that we play games. Where other companies are generally content to follow along, Nintendo will fearlessly go out on a limb and produce what everybody claims is doomed to failure. Then, more often than not, the rest of the industry finds itself scrambling to come up with their own solutions to copy what Nintendo has done just as they are right now. I hate to say it, but Nintendo doesn't miss very often. I'm sure that someone will accuse me of being a fanboy, but whatever helps you to sleep at night. I don't have any skin in this game. I just buy what I like and I call them as I see them. If anything, I'd like to see Sega come out of retirement and make another run at a console, but that will never happen.

Or they re-use an old idea that did fail, or never really took off due to the original company being too small and lacking venture capital, or other complications.

 

And you do have cases where nintendo ended up with Failures, like the Virtual boy, Famicom Disk System, and N64 DD. (the fact that the N64 stuck with carts rather than jumping to optical was the opposite of innovation, but stubbornly sticking to convention, and it cost them dearly, especially in Japan)

There's always significant risk involved and luck as well. Sega got the short straw a few too many times in that respect, though that's oversimplifying matters.

 

One thing they were always strong in since their introduction was handhelds. (from the Game & Watch to the massive success of the Game Boy families to the DS, that was huge, and what saved them in the face of heavily declined market share for consoles worldwide from ~1997-2006 -at one time, Sega had the arcade as it's buffer if all else failed, but as that weakened, so did their flexibility -and Atari had that with computers and the arcade, but it was a perfect storm in '83 with the arcade crash preceding the start of the console crash and the C64 steemrolling the computer market -especially with Atari's own complications of the halt in operations in the critical holiday season)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, no the 5200 Supersystem was a breakthrough excellent console, 4-payer, analogue controls, excellent updated versions of existing titles (something Nintendo picked up upon with Mario, Zelda etc),

great games (not enough games though, crash's to blame for that).

 

Atari 7800 Pro System, MARIA, enough said.

 

Lynx, colour hand-held, again, breakthrough system (left hand control, again, great range of games, hardly any duffs, but outsold by the lesser quality hh, the Game Boy)

 

Atari Jaguar, very innovative English designed console, 64 bit of course (no doubt about that)

 

So all Atari consoles are great consoles by a long shot, and not just updated NESs (SNES), but failure was due to the fact that USA sold itself to Japanese gaming, end of story.

 

Oh yes, XE-GS, well, gotta have one bummer, although a great Atari 8-Bit computer, no less.

In terms of Sales of consoles, I think the 7800 might have been second to the VCS, but worldwide sales figures haven't been compiled afik. (Curt posted Atari Corp's US -not North America- figures totaling 3.77 million up to 1990 though)

 

The 5200 is flawed, though the general problems with it are more arguable, and Atari's main problem was internal management conflicts and especially the distribution system. (the latter heavily contributing to the "glut" problem, specifically with Atari published games, though I think som 3rd parties had similar problems with distribution management)

 

If anything the XEGS (or a direct predecessor more like the 400/600XL/5200) would have made most sense in place of the 5200, but that's another topic. (1987 was a bit late for that... if anything perhaps they should have pushed the 65XE alone as a gaming machine, or the XEGS as a gaming computer so as not to confuse the market with the 7800 and 2600 still there... though an ST derivative in '87 or maybe '88 might have merited it more)

Edited September 11, 2010 by kool kitty89

[kool kitty89]

In my opinion, Nintendo's biggest contribution was recognizing the mistakes that had been made in the video game industry in the years leading up to the crash and implementing policies and procedures which remedied those mistakes, and in the process, helped to revive the video game industry. One of the mistakes they saw that Atari and others had made was designing consoles without any sort of protection for locking out unauthorized third-party software. In a business in which the hardware is sold more or less at cost in the hope that software sales will create most of the profit, an uncontrolled third-party software market hurts the console manufacturers' margins because it steals potential sales, with no royalties. It might help to make the consoles more popular, but it makes them much more unpopular if the third-party product is bad (which a lot of it was during those pre-crash "feeding frenzy" years).

Yeah, but others were already fixing those mistakes, in fact, had it not been for Commodore, even with the unstable Atari in '83, the crash might have been avoided entirely and Atari reorganized before things collapsed. (plus, as competition gained market share, the industry would become more stable: it was Atari's ~70% market share that made things as unstable as they were -and in that case, the hold on Atari operations in late '83 would have benefited others)

 

The main problem before that was that no one had successfully implemented a lock-out system, something that Atari finally solved with the 7800 in 1984, and something the Famicom still lacked with no more control over 3rd parties in Japan than there'd been in the US.

 

The main problem that caused the "glut" in the US was not unregulated 3rd party publishing though, but general poor regulation of distribution all around: especially inflated/inaccurate demand/sales figures preventing publishers from knowing what games to produce more of and what to cut back on or pull from shelves. Warner's refusal to use their record distribution was part of that problem.

 

Nintendo's methods of controlling the market have been criticized as draconian, but some solution was clearly needed, and theirs was certainly effective. As I understand it, they barred unlicensed developers from creating software for their consoles, they implemented strict quality control, and then they had the developers pay them to manufacture the games. I think their standards for evaluating new product were especially ingenious. As Larry Kaplan described them once (in an interview on Retro Gaming Radio that I heard some years ago), the eight criteria they used were: graphics, sound, playability, replayability, initial impression, documentation, portability, and originality. Each was scored on a scale of one to five, and unless your game got at least an 80% overall score (32 out of 40), you were not allowed to publish it. This allowed them to block bad games, but also non-original games that would have diluted the market with too much "me-too" product.

Not Draconian, but monopolistic and anti-competitive. Regulating games and licensing was one thing, as was profiting from 3rd party sales via license royalties (something not possible before lockout -and skated by some 3rd parties who successfully bypassed that).

 

The issue was how it generally hurt smaller 3rd parties in general, and competing hardware companies: Nintendo had total control over cart production at their discretion, and tus could easily play favorites unfairly for certain familiar/close developers and actively penalize certain 3rd parties as well by restricting cart production, then you only had 3 games allowed per year without express review by Nintendo. On top of that was the exclusivity in the contract preventing the publisher from releasing any software for another game console (computers were OK iirc) while signed-on with Nintedo. (for a period of 2 years I believe -not sure if that means that they allowed multiplatform publishing after a 2 year waiting period or something else)

 

Another contribution, thanks in large part to the work of Shigeru Miyamoto, was the creation of several prominent franchises which helped to popularize video games among new generations of players, and which are still making money for Nintendo decades later. While Nintendo was hooking video game players with fresh ideas like Super Mario Brothers, Metroid, and The Legend of Zelda, Atari was still recycling their classic arcade product (Centipede, Asteroids, etc) on the 7800. I love the 7800 versions of those games, and I have mixed feelings about the transition in the popular culture from American game companies and ideas to Japanese ones, but I think it's clear that Nintendo understood what gamers wanted more than Atari did in the mid-80s. That also played a role in bringing video games back, and in elevating them from a fad to a mainstream segment of the entertainment industry.

That's also overstated, though SMB is pretty much a given due to the general decline of more advanced platform games at the time (after Pitfall II you sort of had some stagnation with some primitive and simple platform games on PC and such, though there was more innovation in Europe with platform adventure/puzzle games too, like Manic Miner), there's more contention on some others, and again, Nitndo gets more exclusive credit than they should.

They're excellent games, and innovative in some areas, but more evolutionary in others. Zelda in particular obviously drew heavily from previous adventure and RPGs (especially western ones including the Ultima Series, some simpler adventure/puzzle games on computers and consoles, and some later RPGs as well).

Metroid was also an excellent game, but also drew upon the platform adventure/exploration/puzzle genre already expanding significantly, albeit it improved upon it in several areas. (one of the most similar predecessors in some respects might be Super Robin Hood from 1985 in terms of a large, side-scrolling 2D platform adventure game with projectile weapons, though I think there may be some even closer than that -and of course, you have earlier games than that too, again, Manic Miner is in that platform adventure/puzzle genre among others released before 1986)

 

It would have been pretty interesting if Pitfall II had scrolled horizontally on the C64 or Atari 8-bit versions, but for some reason David Crane stuck with page flipping. (for that matter he stuck with that in a boy and his blob -in fact eliminating vertical scrolling there as well unlike pitfall II which had smooth vertical scrolling on the CV, VCS, A8, and C64 versions at least, some other NES games like Tresure Island Dizzy also stuck to Page Flipping oddly enough and Zelda used page flipping with scrolling transitions -there were much earlier A8 games that made significant use of scrolling though, like the 1982 ET Phone home with V/H scrolling in a top-down adventure type game)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The NES wasn't the first system to have a lock out chip (or authenticating ciruits to use the tech. term), remember the 7800, that featured similar technology and for pretty much the same thing

The 7800's system was actually more elegant and more reliable: no finicky timing-sensitive lockout chip (or added cost), but using a ROM header to authenticate a 7800 game or have the system default to 7800 mode.

 

Biggest mistake Atari made was with the anti competition court case it had with nintendo in 1992, the mistake atari made was linking/associating nintendo's policy on 3rd party games publishing/development with competition in the wider hardware market place, if atari had simply focused specifically and particularly only on nintendo's policy on 3rd party games publishing/dev. and didn't try linking/associating it to anything else, Atari would have probably won the case hands down

Atari Games kept pushing in a rather convoluted court battle that finally ended up getting settled out of court in 1994, but that was more complex as you had the anti-trust litigation and Nintendo's counter suit against copyright/trademark/patent infringement over the clone Rabbit chip. (rather ironic that Atari Games went through the effort to reverse engineer the chip and got in hot water from that vs other 3rd parties like Codemasters who used a very simple voltage spiking mechanism to glitch/freeze the lockout chip instead, something that was entirely legal and much cheaper -though Nintendo also protected against that on some very late models iirc, but the NES2 removed all lockout entirely )

Edited September 11, 2010 by kool kitty89

[jaybird3rd]

The main problem before that was that no one had successfully implemented a lock-out system, something that Atari finally solved with the 7800 in 1984, and something the Famicom still lacked with no more control over 3rd parties in Japan than there'd been in the US.

Yes. Unfortunately for Atari, the 7800 was never popular enough for its lockout system to have any significant impact on the marketplace; if someone wanted to get around it, they could always do 2600 games instead. It probably would have been a better business decision, too: there were a lot more 2600 consoles, and the games would also play on the 7800. That may be one reason the 7800 got such limited support from third-party publishers (in addition to Nintendo's exclusive deals, of course, which blocked them from supporting the 7800 even if they wanted to).

 

But, unlike the 7800, the NES became the biggest video game console, and its lockout system was part of Nintendo's game plan from the beginning (at least in the American market), so even though Atari's software-based implementation was superior to the NES's flaky lockout chip, the NES's lockout mechanism was more successful overall.

 

 

The main problem that caused the "glut" in the US was not unregulated 3rd party publishing though, but general poor regulation of distribution all around: especially inflated/inaccurate demand/sales figures preventing publishers from knowing what games to produce more of and what to cut back on or pull from shelves. Warner's refusal to use their record distribution was part of that problem.

Video game distribution at that time seems to have been based on the idea of stuffing product into the sales channels, but in order to support that distribution model, the industry would have had to have been growing much faster than it actually was. There was growth there, of course, but not enough to absorb the huge volumes of product that were being pushed into the market. Imagic, for example, sold about $85M of product to distributors in 1982, but only about $40M of that sold through to consumers. At the same time, they and everybody else were manufacturing new inventory like crazy in anticipation of Christmas sales, and they were also hedging against a future shortage of integrated circuits.

 

Unfortunately, video game sales were plummeting during that same period (from something like $2 billion in 1982 to $200 million in 1983, I believe). That was a result of several factors, including bad games (particularly from the smaller publishers who stank up the market, like Apollo and Mythicon) and the sense that the dominant Atari 2600 was getting maxed out and that the newer consoles were too fragmented to displace it. But whatever the reason, the publishers didn't respond fast enough: the massive Christmas sales never materialized, the distributors were left with huge volumes of surplus inventory, and because they were powerful enough at the time to do it, they pushed it all back onto the manufacturers. The fact that hidden stockpiles of new/sealed Atari and Intellivision product are still being discovered decades later is an indication of just how bad that problem was.

 

There was also the fact that a lot of publishers (like Atari) would force distributors who wanted to carry popular product to also buy certain quantities of unpopular or overstocked merchandise, and that also contributed to a very hostile retail environment in the years leading up to the crash.

 

 

That's also overstated, though SMB is pretty much a given due to the general decline of more advanced platform games at the time (after Pitfall II you sort of had some stagnation with some primitive and simple platform games on PC and such, though there was more innovation in Europe with platform adventure/puzzle games too, like Manic Miner), there's more contention on some others, and again, Nitndo gets more exclusive credit than they should.

They're excellent games, and innovative in some areas, but more evolutionary in others. Zelda in particular obviously drew heavily from previous adventure and RPGs (especially western ones including the Ultima Series, some simpler adventure/puzzle games on computers and consoles, and some later RPGs as well).

Metroid was also an excellent game, but also drew upon the platform adventure/exploration/puzzle genre already expanding significantly, albeit it improved upon it in several areas. (one of the most similar predecessors in some respects might be Super Robin Hood from 1985 in terms of a large, side-scrolling 2D platform adventure game with projectile weapons, though I think there may be some even closer than that -and of course, you have earlier games than that too, again, Manic Miner is in that platform adventure/puzzle genre among others released before 1986)

 

It would have been pretty interesting if Pitfall II had scrolled horizontally on the C64 or Atari 8-bit versions, but for some reason David Crane stuck with page flipping. (for that matter he stuck with that in a boy and his blob -in fact eliminating vertical scrolling there as well unlike pitfall II which had smooth vertical scrolling on the CV, VCS, A8, and C64 versions at least, some other NES games like Tresure Island Dizzy also stuck to Page Flipping oddly enough and Zelda used page flipping with scrolling transitions -there were much earlier A8 games that made significant use of scrolling though, like the 1982 ET Phone home with V/H scrolling in a top-down adventure type game)

I certainly don't want to overstate Nintendo's role; that's why I went out of my way to say that they "helped to revive the industry" instead of saying that they did it all single-handedly, as some Nintendo fanboys are wont to do.

 

It's certainly true that their games were more evolutionary than revolutionary, and that's part of what I meant when I said that they have never been a particularly strong technology company. Their hardware was never a gigantic leap forward from the competition, but neither were their game mechanics: as you pointed out, side-scrollers and RPGs were around years before Metroid and Zelda. My point was that Nintendo took these existing technologies and genres and constructed very appealing franchises around them, which made video games more exciting in the short-term but also paved the way for sequels and spinoffs in the long-term. Just think of how many Mario games there have been on every one of Nintendo's consoles, for example, and of how much money they've made on that franchise alone (and not only from the games themselves, but also from licensed merchandise and other ancillary markets).

 

This was a different design philosophy than what you saw in American publishers at the time (at least in the consumer market), which was largely about figuring out new technical tricks and constructing games around those. You see a lot of that especially from pre-crash Activision and Imagic. I think they got into that habit because the technology was still at a very early state, and because the 2600 was the dominant platform a lot longer than it should have been: they always had to find new ways of tweaking the technology they had at the time in order to remain competitive. That was the environment in which designers with strong engineering backgrounds like David Crane really flourished. The issues you mentioned about "A Boy and His Blob" might be an example of how his output suffered once the technology was no longer the biggest creative limitation.

[kool kitty89]

Yes. Unfortunately for Atari, the 7800 was never popular enough for its lockout system to have any significant impact on the marketplace; if someone wanted to get around it, they could always do 2600 games instead. It probably would have been a better business decision, too: there were a lot more 2600 consoles, and the games would also play on the 7800. That may be one reason the 7800 got such limited support from third-party publishers (in addition to Nintendo's exclusive deals, of course, which blocked them from supporting the 7800 even if they wanted to).

I'm not sure what sort of licensing plan Atari Corp set-up, but I'd think it was very competitive in terms of cost flexibility, though probably not open (though that might have helped too... well not offering free development kits, but maybe open licensing to any 3rd parties), but I think all 7800 games ended up being Atari published and contracted by various 3rd parties.

The architectural differences with the 7800 didn't help either, but the 2600 was even more extreme in that respect (and the 2600 was probably the best platform for programmers to convert from to the 7800 -in terms of experience), the 5200/A8/ColecoVision/C64 were much closer in several areas to the SMS and NES (albeit the CV has no hardware scrolling).

 

Again, the SMS was a much bigger screw-up than the 7800 given the context of the companies at the time. (Warner made a mess of things, sure, but as far as Atari Corp went, there's not a ton more they could have done, some probably but still limited)

 

But, unlike the 7800, the NES became the biggest video game console, and its lockout system was part of Nintendo's game plan from the beginning (at least in the American market), so even though Atari's software-based implementation was superior to the NES's flaky lockout chip, the NES's lockout mechanism was more successful overall.

More useful yes, more successful... not really, and not more innovative by far, though Nintendo's marketing in certain areas was certainly innovative. (we could speculate like crazy over what sort of trends might have gotten pushed had Atari Inc followed through with Morgan's plans and not been split up by Warner, or had other console companies attempted to weather the crash, or if CBM hadnd't had the price war in 1983, etc, etc, but with that sort of speculation, you can't really get far at all )

 

Video game distribution at that time seems to have been based on the idea of stuffing product into the sales channels, but in order to support that distribution model, the industry would have had to have been growing much faster than it actually was. There was growth there, of course, but not enough to absorb the huge volumes of product that were being pushed into the market. Imagic, for example, sold about $85M of product to distributors in 1982, but only about $40M of that sold through to consumers. At the same time, they and everybody else were manufacturing new inventory like crazy in anticipation of Christmas sales, and they were also hedging against a future shortage of integrated circuits.

And one problem on top of all that was that Atari Inc had to buy back all that unsold merchandise from distributors, which really hurt them on top of everything else.

 

Unfortunately, video game sales were plummeting during that same period (from something like $2 billion in 1982 to $200 million in 1983, I believe). That was a result of several factors, including bad games (particularly from the smaller publishers who stank up the market, like Apollo and Mythicon) and the sense that the dominant Atari 2600 was getting maxed out and that the newer consoles were too fragmented to displace it. But whatever the reason, the publishers didn't respond fast enough: the massive Christmas sales never materialized, the distributors were left with huge volumes of surplus inventory, and because they were powerful enough at the time to do it, they pushed it all back onto the manufacturers. The fact that hidden stockpiles of new/sealed Atari and Intellivision product are still being discovered decades later is an indication of just how bad that problem was.

The C64 was undoubtedly a huge reason that there was such a dramatic shift in 1983... that and Atari Inc totally missed out on teh holiday system for both consoles and computers due to the unfortunately timed halt in operations that fall. (ironically the beginning of James Morgan's reformation efforts -which were quite promising, it's just that that was the worst possible time to start)

 

There was also the fact that a lot of publishers (like Atari) would force distributors who wanted to carry popular product to also buy certain quantities of unpopular or overstocked merchandise, and that also contributed to a very hostile retail environment in the years leading up to the crash.

Didn't Nintendo use that same tactic to initially get more NESs into stores before they had real retail acceptance? (using Worlds of Wonder)

 

It's certainly true that their games were more evolutionary than revolutionary, and that's part of what I meant when I said that they have never been a particularly strong technology company. Their hardware was never a gigantic leap forward from the competition, but neither were their game mechanics: as you pointed out, side-scrollers and RPGs were around years before Metroid and Zelda. My point was that Nintendo took these existing technologies and genres and constructed very appealing franchises around them, which made video games more exciting in the short-term but also paved the way for sequels and spinoffs in the long-term. Just think of how many Mario games there have been on every one of Nintendo's consoles, for example, and of how much money they've made on that franchise alone (and not only from the games themselves, but also from licensed merchandise and other ancillary markets).

That's another point though, the NES really was a pretty revolutionary piece of console hardware. I mean in some areas it wasn't a huge break away from the C64 a year earlier or the A8-bits in some respects even, but in other respects it really was quite advanced for the time: the combination of a broad master color palette and numerous subpalettes for characters and sprites (8 subpalettes for the 3 or 4 color tiles), decent number of multicolor sprites (not as large as the C64's, but with hardware multiplexing), fairly high resolution with full color available (vs the 160 wide of the C64's multicolor mode). And then you had the audio: the pulse wave and triangle were nice though not anything super special (and more limited than the SID in several areas), but the 7-bit DPCM channel was significant for sure, and had better digital sample playback than anything up to the MegaDrive (which occasionally had worse sample playback anyway due to poor PCM playback code used in the Z80 -as it was software driven) and the only hardware sample playback in a console support prior to the ADPCM chip in the PCE/Turbo CD. (and later the SNES)

It was the first console to use serial controller ports too. (the SNES actually used the same I/O logic as the NES)

 

 

This was a different design philosophy than what you saw in American publishers at the time (at least in the consumer market), which was largely about figuring out new technical tricks and constructing games around those. You see a lot of that especially from pre-crash Activision and Imagic. I think they got into that habit because the technology was still at a very early state, and because the 2600 was the dominant platform a lot longer than it should have been: they always had to find new ways of tweaking the technology they had at the time in order to remain competitive. That was the environment in which designers with strong engineering backgrounds like David Crane really flourished. The issues you mentioned about "A Boy and His Blob" might be an example of how his output suffered once the technology was no longer the biggest creative limitation.

Maybe, or maybe not... A boy and his blob may not be a really impressive looking game, but it's a good platform adventure game in general. I'm not sure why he opted for page flipping though, maybe it was part of the game mechanics: Treasure island Dizzy did the same thing and that didn't make sense either. (the C64 and Amiga had hardware scrolling too, and many Spectrum/CPC/ST games had software scrolling even, and again you had Pitfall II not adding horizontal scrolling on the A8 or C64 versions, though it did have vertical scrolling on all including smooth software scrolling on the colecovision interestingly enough)

 

Other developers tended to push more to the technical sides of things too: id software comes to mind there, especially John Carmak's games. Of course, that's at the point where the game engine and full game design were no longer a one man job at all, so a bit different there too. (that had changed signifcantly by the end of the 80s in many cases of more complex games starting to get small teams of staff to develop a single game -particularly split with art/level design, game engine/programming, and music/sound design)

[homerwannabee]

OK, let me take a stab at this.

 

Nintendo.

 

The NES is the first, and only toaster VCR like game system out there.

 

They also created R.O.B. the robot. First, and only game system to have a robot play your games.

 

As BuyAtari told me, they were also innovative with the competition cart, because they had no idea that the Atlantis II cart even existed!

[The_Laird]

No there were robots for home computers in the early eighties

[carmel_andrews]

Slightly wrong about the msx there kool k.

 

http://www.faq.msxnet.org/msxgeneral.html

 

a spectravideo machine (based on the msx standard) and a couple of yamaha ones did make their bow in the US markets

 

Also you seem to forget that nintendo actually had several attempts at releasing/testmarketing the Nes in the US that happened before they hit lucky with the testmarketing in NY, and that's not counting the arrangement nintendo and atari were looking to tie up)

 

Also slighlty wrong about US software houses before nintendo's entry into the market, as Games by Appolo proved, that hardware manufacturers and their software subsidiaries didn't block out 3rd party publishing, since Games by Appolo's 'skeet shoot' became the first independently produced game for the 2600/vcs to hit the market (i.e came out before any of activision's and imagic's offerings)

 

If i recall correctly, the out of court settlement betw. activision and atari, didn't actually create the concept of 3rd party games publishing & development for gaming systems, it merely popularised it and hastened a more corporate approach to the management and running of new players in this market, further more atari actually nicked an idea from commodore and laterly nintendo as part of the out of court settlement with activision, in that atari would allow publishers to make games for the 2600/vcs so long as they mentioned that the software was 2600/vcs compatible and that atari would receive a percentage (royalty) from each sale, an idea that commodore previously had and had been considered but i guess that either tramiel (when he was still heading up cbm) or one of his managers poo pooed the idea (there are several mentions of that fact in the tomcyzc book 'home computer wars') also nintendo, after they dropped the exclusivity clause in the 3rd part software publishing/dev. contracts and also allowed publishers to make and distribute their own content, nintendo also asked for a percentage or royalty from each sale (as well as making addit. money from each sale because publishers still needed to purchase the lock out chip from nintendo)

 

 

Slightly wrong about the whole european/uk games market during the mid 80's, it was only largely tape/disk driven because very few hardware manufacturers (consoles/gaming systems) encouraged software houses to publish or develop games for their gaming system (sega was the first games hardware company to get consistently supported with games published by uk/euoprean publishers for that market) the likes of Atari had to wait for the likes of the lynxd to come along before Atari got software support in the UK/european markets for one of it's gaming systems and nintendo would only start getting support once it dropped it's exclusivity clause of it's contracts and allowed publishers to produce and distribute their own content, which happened in early 1991)

 

Even though Sega were relatively successful in getting consistent support from UK and european publishers to make games for the various sega formats, it wasn't till after commodore went under (1994) and atari stopped hardware production/manufacturing (late 1993) that the market for console/games system games publishing had overtaken games development/publishing for computers

Edited September 12, 2010 by carmel_andrews

[BDW]

No there were robots for home computers in the early eighties

Please, post some pics. I wish to see them.

[Retro Rogue]

a spectravideo machine (based on the msx standard) and a couple of yamaha ones did make their bow in the US markets

 

Spectravideo was one of the companies involved in the standard, and it was a Chicago based company initially.

 

Also slighlty wrong about US software houses before nintendo's entry into the market, as Games by Appolo proved, that hardware manufacturers and their software subsidiaries didn't block out 3rd party publishing, since Games by Appolo's 'skeet shoot' became the first independently produced game for the 2600/vcs to hit the market (i.e came out before any of activision's and imagic's offerings)

 

Not true. Game By Apollo didn't form/release anything until 1981.

 

 

If i recall correctly, the out of court settlement betw. activision and atari, didn't actually create the concept of 3rd party games publishing & development for gaming systems, it merely popularised it and hastened a more corporate approach to the management and running of new players in this market,

 

No, Kitty is correct. Activision was the first 3rd party publishing company for game consoles in the US, and the settlement opened the doors for other 3rd party companies legally.

 

 

further more atari actually nicked an idea from commodore and laterly nintendo as part of the out of court settlement with activision,

 

That's a big claim, do you have any sources to back up that Atari took the idea from them? I think you're confused on the timeframe, Nintendo's Famicom and licensing practices weren't until '83.

 

 

in that atari would allow publishers to make games for the 2600/vcs so long as they mentioned that the software was 2600/vcs compatible and that atari would receive a percentage (royalty) from each sale, an idea that commodore previously had and had been considered but i guess that either tramiel (when he was still heading up cbm) or one of his managers poo pooed the idea (there are several mentions of that fact in the tomcyzc book 'home computer wars') also nintendo, after they dropped the exclusivity clause in the 3rd part software publishing/dev. contracts and also allowed publishers to make and distribute their own content, nintendo also asked for a percentage or royalty from each sale (as well as making addit. money from each sale because publishers still needed to purchase the lock out chip from nintendo)

 

Commodore did software licensing, a pretty common and well used model. I'm not sure what you're trying to insinuate.

Edited September 12, 2010 by wgungfu

[jaybird3rd]

No there were robots for home computers in the early eighties

Please, post some pics. I wish to see them.

 

Androbot

[high voltage]

C64 had that weird Robot thingie

[akator]

No there were robots for home computers in the early eighties

Please, post some pics. I wish to see them.

 

There were many, many options for computer controlled educational/toy/household robots in the early 80s. Some of it was pretty substantial. This site might help. Off the top of my head, I can remember playing with the following, but there are even more that I can't remember well enough to name.

 

- The 1979 HeathKit HERO 1 robot had an optional computer interface, and the later HERO 2000 had a computer interface as standard.

- There was a third party computer interface kit for the Radio Shack Armatron.

- The 1982 RB5X had a computer interface with Apple II software.

- Capsela also had computer controlled options at least by the mid 80s. Before those were introduced, when I was 12 I wired my own stuff that would trigger Capsella motors and lights from an Apple II serial card and my own BASIC program.

[BDW]

No there were robots for home computers in the early eighties

Please, post some pics. I wish to see them.

 

There were many, many options for computer controlled educational/toy/household robots in the early 80s. Some of it was pretty substantial. This site might help. Off the top of my head, I can remember playing with the following, but there are even more that I can't remember well enough to name.

 

- The 1979 HeathKit HERO 1 robot had an optional computer interface, and the later HERO 2000 had a computer interface as standard.

- There was a third party computer interface kit for the Radio Shack Armatron.

- The 1982 RB5X had a computer interface with Apple II software.

- Capsela also had computer controlled options at least by the mid 80s. Before those were introduced, when I was 12 I wired my own stuff that would trigger Capsella motors and lights from an Apple II serial card and my own BASIC program.

Awesome, thanks for the link.

[kool kitty89]

Slightly wrong about the msx there kool k.

Good point, I'd forgotten a bunch of that (and missed it when I skimmed over some of the MSX articles again, but also note that Spectravideo didn't actually have a true MSX compatible out until 1985... they had earlier machines that actually predated the MSX standard but were very similar (albeit not fully compatible), but not true MSX compatibles. (and as Marty pointed out, Spectravideo was a US based company initially and was one of the companies to contribute to the standardization of the MSX. (their slightly earlier SV-318/328 obviously having an impact on that)

 

Slightly wrong about the whole european/uk games market during the mid 80's, it was only largely tape/disk driven because very few hardware manufacturers (consoles/gaming systems) encouraged software houses to publish or develop games for their gaming system (sega was the first games hardware company to get consistently supported with games published by uk/euoprean publishers for that market) the likes of Atari had to wait for the likes of the lynxd to come along before Atari got software support in the UK/european markets for one of it's gaming systems and nintendo would only start getting support once it dropped it's exclusivity clause of it's contracts and allowed publishers to produce and distribute their own content, which happened in early 1991)

 

Even though Sega were relatively successful in getting consistent support from UK and european publishers to make games for the various sega formats, it wasn't till after commodore went under (1994) and atari stopped hardware production/manufacturing (late 1993) that the market for console/games system games publishing had overtaken games development/publishing for computers

I'm not sure what you mean... Tapes were largely attractive due to low cost. Disks and carts were there, but disks were hardly used for 8-bits (especially games) due to cost (especially the cost of the drives), and carts were somewhat popular, but again limited by costs. That's the main reason the Spectrum caught on so well in the UK and a few other European countries (albeit some favored the MSX or CPC more, and the C64 of course).

 

Nintendo screwed up their marketing in Europe regardless in several cases, but managed to compete moderately well regardless, though only actually had the edge over the SMS in a few markets (like Germany and parts of Norther Europe like Holland, Denmark and Scandinavia iirc). (that and Sega even had the software advantage with certain arcade tiles, many better looking multiplatform games, and Soccer games among others -remember the Arcades were pretty strong in Europe at the time while I believe the US was still recovering after the Arcade market crash in '83)

Sega's main problem in the US was, again marketing: they had good enough software, impressive hardware (graphics wise), and decent funding, but they messed up the marketing campaign in '86/87 and missed out on a chance to really compete before Nintendo dug-in. (NEC also screwed up their marketing in the US with the TG-16 -with Nintendo's licensing limits hurting them even more, and not pushing for Europe was almost certainly a mistake, but that's another topic)

 

As for Atari... I do wonder why the 7800 or 2600 didn't get at least modest EU/UK 3rd party support in the mid/late 80s given both were supposedly fairly popular there (in the UK at least, as budget systems -especially the 2600).

The ST obviously got good support though and unfortunately Atari Inc missed out on their chance to hit the 8-bit market with the 400/800 (apparently software development support was rather poor, not to mention not shifting existing software to cater to the popular cassette format). Of course, like in the US, the hold in late '83 hurt the 8-bits, especially with the 600/800XL coming then and '83 being a critical time in both the US and EU in terms of computers. (albeit it was mainly the Speccy that started booming in the UK that year, I think the C64 was a bit slower to really get moving due to the price gap -CBM apparently didn't dump it in Europe as it did in the US at the time)

 

 

 

 

That's a big claim, do you have any sources to back up that Atari took the idea from them? I think you're confused on the timeframe, Nintendo's Famicom and licensing practices weren't until '83.

 

As for Nintendo: I don't think there hard/monopolistic/etc licensing practices started until around 1987 (maybe '86), or at least that's when they had the power to actually start pushing such (more so for '87, even by the end of '86 not so much). But in Japan, the Famicom was as open as the previous US consoles and home computers; I'm not sure of Nintendo's licensing agreements in Japan, but really the only thing they could restrict was hardware documentation and tools. (and eventually that would get leaked/reverse engineered anyway)

Nintendo didn't introduce lockout until they introduced the NES to North America, and I've seen some comments that the early models in some of the test markets may have actually been missing the lockout chips, but I'm not sure that's true.

 

Commodore did software licensing, a pretty common and well used model. I'm not sure what you're trying to insinuate.

 

How did CBM manage licensing for their computers? Was it just a charge to sign on as an official software publisher for the computer and to receive official hardware documentation and related development tools? (otherwise what's the point if developers could just publish without the licensing overhead?) Or the A400/800 for that matter: did Atari facilitate 3rd party licensing/development there, or discourage it? (I know TI had a policy against 3rd party development for the TI99/4, but that seems odd to me for a Computer: for a game console it make sense, but a computer platform normally doesn't follow that model -especially given previous home computers don't seem to have done anything near that)

Edited September 13, 2010 by kool kitty89

[kingofcrusher]

Silpheed on Sega CD uses polygons for enemies, you can enable the debug menu and rotate the enemies on their axes.

[kool kitty89]

Silpheed on Sega CD uses polygons for enemies, you can enable the debug menu and rotate the enemies on their axes.

I'm not sure those were rendered in realtime. This has come up on Sega-16 several times.

Regardless of the method of animation (be it stored in RAM/streamed/compressed or rendered in realtime) the enemies and your ship are all sprites (ie hardware sprites, animated sprite tiles, not rendered to the background layer like the animiated scenery). SO if it is rendered in realtime, it's rendering animation for the sprite tiles which are then moved around the screen as normal sprites, but given the very limited amount of animation, the fact that much of the animation could be mirrored (cutting the necessary number of frames stored) and the fact that some animation is not even animation but color cycling of palette entires, it's possible that everything is prerendered for that as well. (you also don't have to animate for the vertical perspective change as that seems to be all straight scaling which the CD can do in hardware)

 

One thing would be to compare the original 1986 silpheed and its use of polygons. In that case there may very well be no realtime polygon rendering either (especially given the hardware being used -4 MHz Z80 and bitmap display), perhaps software scaling at most given the limited RAM on the PC8801 -actually, by 1986, there were 8 MHz models and expanded RAM, but the major userbase would have been composed of more limited models, so they'd likely have catered to that)

 

 

The only Sega CD game I'm sure of rendering polygonal graphics for the entire game (save the 2D BG) is Stellar Fire. (batman returns, batman and robin, f-1 beyond the limit, and Joe Montana NFL all use some texture mapped polygons to some extent -albeit limited and the Sega CD's graphics coprocessor facilitated texture mapping for polygonal rendering as well as scaling and rotation -but not texture mapping for ray casing type games as it renders on a line by line basis vs column rendering in ray-casting for wolf3d/doom/etc)

 

In the case of Silphee, the CD+MD certainly would have the power to render the polygons in realtime, but if they could get away with using animation+scaling alone, that saves a lot of resource. In particular other resource would need to go towards decoding streaming animation and especially and decompression going on. (another thing that came up is whether Silpheed's BG animation is really "FMV" in the sense of streaming frame by frame animation -be it compressed or uncompressed- or if it's an elaborate form of buffered tile animation that's updated on the fly -again with or without compression- and it seems more likely to be the latter, and in any case some form of compression is likely used; the one thing that was confirmed in the last discussion was that they animation was in tile format, not bitmaps, so it is some form of tile animation and that really would make the most sense given how it's managed -and it's obviously constantly being updated with streaming data but it also seems to be optimized to buffer a lot of looping tile animations as well with additional cases of large, singular animation, and it seems likely that lossless compression was employed given the framerate drop on certain full-screen animation with more detail/texture vs other full-screen stuff that's all flat shaded -certain graphics compress better with lossless schemes- plus the fact that no Japanese developers seem to use compressed video with the lossy schemes -ie cinepak- used in the west and that such losless schemes were common for use with tile pattern data on cart games)

[Syzygy1]

Mario!