Did Super Mario Bros end the crash?

[tz101]

 

I highly suggest you cut back on the flamebait and other trolling activities or I suspect you won't be around here much longer. I also suggest you cease trashing this site on other message boards, as I've seen you doing. If there's anyone who needs to be put "in their place", it's you.

 

If you have that much of a problem with this site, take a walk.

 

You are not the one to tell anybody to take a walk. Last I checked you were not the administrator of this site. As for what has been said on other boards, if the truth hurts, then get over it. If there's anyone who needs put in their place its you.

 

Suggestion, get over your overinflated sense of self worth. Your "knowledge" is minimal, very minimal. You are a fool and nothing else.

[+Random Terrain]

Looks like another walk has been spoiled. We must be playing golf.

[Cebus Capucinis]

Looks like another walk has been spoiled. We must be playing golf.

 

FORE!

 

I think it would be interesting if we could have a thought experiment and find out what could have been. Would there perhaps have been a C64-style console in development? Would other companies have considered entering the fray with a console-style program ALA the XEGS? If so, what would have been considered? Curt and Marty have stated that an ST-style console was being considered internally via Atari, but would there have been anything else out there being cooked up, at least in some developer's brain?

[Jess Ragan]

I think it would be very foolish to underestimate Nintendo's influence, as well as its importance to the video game industry. Having said that, people didn't just stop playing video games in 1984... companies just stopped making a profit from it. Games made a shift to the adjacent computer industry, and probably would have remained there if the NES hadn't been released. I imagine that video games would have taken a turn for the more cerebral, with fewer action titles and a lot more adventures (King's Quest) and role-playing games (Ultima).

 

If you want to see how the video game industry would have evolved without the NES, just look across the pond to Great Britain. The ZX Spectrum was dominant among 8-bit consoles in that country, and the games were designed especially for that format, with their slower pace offset by a difficulty level that borders on merciless. The NES, with its superior audiovisuals and responsive joypad, was better suited to fast action titles with stylish Japanese artwork and a more streamlined design.

 

Which of these two styles is better is a matter of preference, but one way or another, the industry was going to evolve, and video games weren't going to be anything like they were in the Atari era. It's why I believe that the Atari 7800 would have been doomed even if the NES had never existed... it was a console thinking backward in a forward-thinking industry, with an overabundance of pre-crash software. The Sega Saturn, a console which I absolutely loved, was another system destined for failure because it just wasn't designed for current industry trends. It would have been more successful in the United States if it had been properly marketed and Bernie Stolar had been shot out of a cannon into the sun before Sega had hired him (ah, dare to dream!), but it could never have beaten the 3D-focused Playstation.

 

Anyway, getting to the point... yes, I think Super Mario Bros. ended the crash and changed the direction of the video game industry. It's not the only way things could have gone, though. I do know that whoever resurrected the industry, it wouldn't have been Atari, because the company had no interest in moving it forward.

[Cebus Capucinis]

Agreed. Despite the fact that it's obvious where our loyalties lie due to the name of the site we're on, it's foolhardy to completely dismiss Nintendo's effect on the market as a whole. I find it interesting that you believe video games would have turned more toward adventure titles, but more surprisingly RPGs -- something the NES seemed to re-birth in a significant way with titles like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Even the AD&D games saw a significant market boost due to NES ports of the computer games. Is it the case that RPGs would be that significantly different as we know them without the NES pioneering some of these titles? I can't say for sure.

 

For fear of arising the mob with pitchforks, I definitely agree that Atari was not going to forge ahead in any significant way to restructure a business model significantly enough to effect the market as a whole (I am eagerly awaiting Marty's input on this, actually, as I'm sure there's something I'm not thinking of!). The 7800 -- admittedly a system I enjoy -- was just not significant enough by the time it was put to market to make a large enough 'dent' for whatever reason.

 

But what of the others? Would Sega become a player in a bigger way with plans for the SMS again, or was that a response due to the NES success (I honestly don't remember)? Major software houses were really seeing significant gains in multiple ways -- Electronic Arts, for example -- and we all know Trip Hawkins was definitely interested in creating his own console (thus born the 3D0). Would that vacuum created by the lack of an NES perhaps push Hawkins, for one, to think more significantly of the available market share in a new console in what otherwise would be considered a 'stagnant' market?

 

(This has always been a very interesting topic for me to discuss, thus my large-post novella style participation. I've always been interested in finding out the 'what-ifs' related to Nintendo's almost meteoric rise and hope that the discussion can continue along these lines despite the glaring speed-bumps certain members like to throw in the path regularly.)

[The_Laird]

If you want to see how the video game industry would have evolved without the NES, just look across the pond to Great Britain. The ZX Spectrum was dominant among 8-bit consoles in that country, and the games were designed especially for that format, with their slower pace offset by a difficulty level that borders on merciless. The NES, with its superior audiovisuals and responsive joypad, was better suited to fast action titles with stylish Japanese artwork and a more streamlined design.

 

Don't agree with that in the slightest. My first ever machine was a Spectrum when I was 9 and I never found the games all that hard, certainly no harder than on any other system. In fact in my opinion the Spectrum was doing what we would now call console style games well before the NES came out. Platformers became very popular on the system after the release of Manic Miner and pretty much every arcade game was converted to the machine not to mention the many games based on films. The Spectrum was playing NES style games over here before the NES came out in the US as well as a large range of more computer style games like adventures and simulations. This is the major reason the Spectrum was so dominant here, the shear selection of games. And it was also the reason nobody really upgraded to consoles until the Megadrive came along. Systems like the NES just didn't offer anything new to us except more colourful graphics but that came at a massive cost. You could buy a very good Spectrum game for £3 and you would pay 10 times that for a NES game.

[DracIsBack]

Does anyone else think the videogame crash was over-exaggerated at all?

 

Not at all. I did grow up in the crash and I most definitely remember games that sold for $50 one year, selling for $3 or less the next. I remember consoles being halved in price, boxes of unsold games and reading about how sales fell from $3 billion to $100 million as well as a lot of news about layoffs and Atari getting sold.

[Emehr]

Things I wasn't aware of until the internet:

 

- There was a video game crash (huh, what? I guess I was too busy playing the few games I had to notice)

- E.T. is a bad game (could've fooled me!)

- Pitfall II (I never knew Pitfall had a sequel on the 2600)

[DracIsBack]

You're right, it was awful for companies but not so much for consumers.

 

Heh - yeah! I got my first console in 1984 or 5 ... a Coleco Gemini! Remember those? Got a TV to play it on for my birthday and the Gemini for Christmas.

 

The thing came with a coupon for (I think) $30 worth of free games from the store where it was purchased. I ended up getting a whole pile of games for Christmas with it ... Star Raiders, Kangaroo, Defender, Berzerk, Donkey Kong (that may have been the pack-in), and at least one or two others.

 

When I unwrapped the Coleco and its games, my Uncle showed me the Consumer's Distributing catalog from a year earlier where each of those games was listed at $40-$60 each!

[Jess Ragan]

Well, games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest/Warrior were a Japanese reinvention of Western RPGs, streamlined for home consoles. If there had never been an NES, I imagine that RPGs would have grown outward, becoming more open-ended and detail-oriented at the cost of user-friendliness. We're actually seeing this happen now thanks to Japan experiencing its own video game crash. Americans are turning their backs on the shallow and cinematic Final Fantasy in favor of Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Mass Effect, games which make the player feel like they're in control of the story rather than merely watching it unfold.

 

I think the Master System was released as a response to the NES, and likely wouldn't have existed if Nintendo hadn't thrown its hat into the ring first. (Yes, I'm aware of the SG-1000 and SG-3000, but they would have been laughed out of the market the second they were released.) However, I can't see the SMS making a huge impact on the market because it, like the Atari 7800, was too arcade-focused. Granted, Afterburner and Outrun were more technologically advanced games than Centipede and Ms. Pac-Man, but still, players wanted video games with more meat on their bones, not the instant gratification of say, Altered Beast. (What gratification that can provide, anyway.)

[CARTRIDGE STEALER]

I remember my best friend coming over with a NES back in 1986, and he said I could keep it! he said his father saw it being thrown out in the garbage and he picked it up. I swear its the truth.

[CARTRIDGE STEALER]

Things I wasn't aware of until the internet:

 

- There was a video game crash (huh, what? I guess I was too busy playing the few games I had to notice)

- E.T. is a bad game (could've fooled me!)

- Pitfall II (I never knew Pitfall had a sequel on the 2600)

 

 

pitfall 2 was awsome! I used to play the crap out of it on my colecovision in 1991!

[Jess Ragan]

If you want to see how the video game industry would have evolved without the NES, just look across the pond to Great Britain. The ZX Spectrum was dominant among 8-bit consoles in that country, and the games were designed especially for that format, with their slower pace offset by a difficulty level that borders on merciless. The NES, with its superior audiovisuals and responsive joypad, was better suited to fast action titles with stylish Japanese artwork and a more streamlined design.

 

Don't agree with that in the slightest. My first ever machine was a Spectrum when I was 9 and I never found the games all that hard, certainly no harder than on any other system.

 

Wait, you didn't find SabreWulf hard? Were you playing it with cheats? I can't imagine anyone in the universe beating the game without them. Or Manic Miner. Or Head Over Heels. Or Jet Set Willy, which I've heard was LITERALLY impossible to finish without cheats. The difficulty of these games was absolutely berzerk. I wrote a series of articles about the Spectrum over at 1UP, and the games invariably chewed me up and spit me out.

 

I don't really agree that the Spectrum was offering players an NES-like experience, mostly because the great graphics of NES games were part of the experience, but also because games on the NES were faster-paced and less puzzle-oriented. Take Dizzy, for instance. Victory isn't awarded to the fastest of thumbs, but the player creative enough to figure out which items will open which doors. (The games were ported to the NES later, but they weren't officially licensed and felt rather out of place on the format.)

 

The most Spectrum-like game I've ever played on the NES was Solstice, which felt like it would have been a perfect fit on Britain's budget computer. It's got the same isometric perspective, the same massive levels, and the same punishing difficulty as many Spectrum titles. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it was originally designed for that format.

[jaybird3rd]

(WARNING: This is an off-topic post, because tz101 seems to insist on being abusive and unpleasant.)

 

So, with his first post in this thread, tz101 needlessly starts the discussion on a negative note by firing off a complete non sequitur:

 

This thread is asking for trouble with so many all-knowing posters here on AA. Presenting a viable hypothesis will ultimately end with at least three individuals I can think of presenting their ideas as "fact" and attempting to disparage any who disagree.

 

AA really needs to moderate the threads to the extent of warning the repeat bullying attempts by a select few. Instead, often those who put them in their place are blamed or ridiculed. Free thinking is not allowed on these forums.

But then, in his very next post, he says this ...

 

Suggestion, get over your overinflated sense of self worth. Your "knowledge" is minimal, very minimal. You are a fool and nothing else.

The second post certainly sounds like bullying, ridiculing, and disparagement to me. I have a "suggestion" of my own for tz101: as someone who repeatedly and annoyingly preaches at others, you should practice what you preach for once and refrain from being abusive.

 

As for the "all-knowing posters" who "disparage any who disagree," I assume you are referring to my response to you in the "Missile Command Story" thread, in which you presented an assertion that was completely unsupported by the facts and then bristled after I and others called you on it. "Free thinking" does not include being entitled to your own version of reality. If you have a problem with something that was said in another thread, deal with it there or in PMs instead of dragging old grievances into completely unrelated threads and raining on other people's discussions, as you've done here. If you have a problem with AtariAge or its moderators, talk to them directly instead of running off and complaining about them on other forums. Your current modus operandi makes you look like a coward.

 

And before you come back and say "you're not a moderator, you can't tell me what to do": I'm not trying to do that, but if you keep going the way you are, I think you'll be hearing from the moderators directly. Again.

[Jess Ragan]

Could we make this about the subject and not TZ101? He's probably got a raging boner from the attention he's getting.

[jaybird3rd]

Now, back on topic ...

 

I don't know if Super Mario Brothers single-handedly ended the crash, but it certainly played an important role in Nintendo's overall strategy. Others have mentioned that the crash was "invisible" to consumers because there was still plenty of product available, but remember that the glut of product was one of the key factors which caused the crash in the first place. Because there were too few barriers to entry, and because publishing video games looked like a license to print money in the years when video games were still new and exciting, there was much more "push" than "pull." I wrote about this in another thread, so let me paraphrase what I wrote there because I think it's relevant to this discussion:

 

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. In the process, they 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 significantly more unpopular if the third-party product is bad (and 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, and so forth--on the 7800 (of course, the fact that Atari found itself frozen out of the most popular licenses through Nintendo's exclusive contracts didn't help their situation). 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.

[jaybird3rd]

Could we make this about the subject and not TZ101? He's probably got a raging boner from the attention he's getting.

I agree. What he said demanded a response, but it's best to ignore him now that that's been dealt with.

 

Another point, related to my previous post, regarding the economics of video game distribution in the years leading up to the crash ...

 

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. Activision's distribution wasn't in much better shape that Imagic's, but they had the good fortune of completing a successful public offering before the crash occurred, which gave them the capital they needed to stay afloat. Imagic almost made it, but Atari sabotaged their effort by pre-announcing a bad quarter on the day they were pricing the stock.

 

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 replace 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.

[BEERS AND VIDEOS]

I think the crash is an over-exaggerated joke as far as gamers go.

 

I'm only 22 , so I am just repeating what my friends and family that are older have told me.

 

back in the 80s they used to hang out at parks and swap atari 2600 games, and they would play their C64s religiously, even AFTER NES came out. There was never an OH GOD. WE NEED GAMES, I HOPE THIS CRASH ENDS. nonsense

 

 

They weren't wandering a desolate wasteland of ET Cartridges, scrounging for Tiger handhelds and shit.

 

 

 

That being said, no I don't think Mario is really what put things back on track. It helped, but it wasn't ALL mario. There were other systems at the same time FFS. Mario's just the one RoundEye McWhiteman associates with the most.

 

ALEX KIDD. WHAT? fuckyeah.

 

Yup, I also feel there was some exaggeration. Sure, the companies lost a lot, but gamers just got their fix elsewhere, either at the arcade, on computers like the C64, or on the older systems they already had. I was only about 9, but I still remember playing my Colecovision and 2600 quite a bit still, though there weren't any new games available - but you could get a lot of games cheap. We got a Commodore 64 in '84 and that's what kept my friends and I busy in '84-'86.

 

Did SMB save the industry? I'm not sure about that, but it definitely heightened the expectations of video games and the experiences they could provide. I think it was Nintendo's quality software and business model (good or bad), which tapped talented third-party developers and pushed them achieve higher by limited the number of games they could release annually, that had the most to do with the industry coming back.

[The_Laird]

The original Jet Set Willy had a bug which meant you couldn't finish it but that was fixed in Jet Set Willy 2. I was never a fan of platformers or adventure games like Sabrewulf so didn't really play them but I know plenty of people who did and who finished them.

 

I would certainly never say the NES had great graphics nor did I know anyone at the time who thought that. They mostly looked like C64 graphics with their often horrid colours and slighty blocky nature. Most of us hated the style of NES games too with everything kind of cartoonized. The resolution of the Spectrum was much the same as the NES but because of the border round the edge it actually meant the speccy graphics looked higher res. It had less colour and colour was hard to use well, but not impossible. But then again alot of games looked great with monochrome style graphics anyway, Robocop springs to mind which also had fantastic music and speech.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqEBj2JEaxk

 

An interesting comparison between the Spectrum and NES is the game Rainbow Islands:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft9-ghtpF_0&feature=related

 

NES version

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr_m9UOycZg

 

Spectrum Version

 

That Spectrum version is definately being emulated as the music sound slightly off and there seems to be a little flicker which there isn't on the real game which I have but you get the general idea.

[Cebus Capucinis]

Here's another interesting wrench to throw into the fray:

 

Let's say for whatever reason Nintendo doesn't gain traction, doesn't get market share, whatever you want to explain it. There's a vacuum left in the market (albeit a small one due to lack of consumer confidence).

 

What does Nolan Bushnell do? After getting the ax from Warner and seeing Warner fracture and report lower sales, helping the market vacuum, does he return as a "visionary" creator? Or, still reeling from the Bally/Sente debacle, does he keep his head down? Does the Bally/Sente debacle still occur at all? Mr. Bushnell was attempting to continue innovation at Atari and push the 2600 out in favor of a new console by the time Warner becomes top dog (or so rumor has it). Does this opportunity created by the lack of Nintendo dominance allow him to return to that idea, perhaps planning an independent video game console or partnering with Axlon or Bally again?

[jaybird3rd]

I'm not sure Bushnell would have handled things any better. Remember that he was under a strict non-compete agreement with Warner after his departure from Atari, so he couldn't have gotten involved in the video game industry even if he wanted to; instead, he turned his attention to Pizza Time Theater. It's my understanding that when Roger Hector, Ed Rotberg, Howard Delman, and some of the other Atari guys broke off to form Videa, Bushnell helped to get them started with the intention of picking them up as the video game division of Pizza Time after his non-compete agreement expired, which is what he did. Videa then became Sente, and you'll understand Bushnell's intentions if you understand the name: "Atari" is roughly the equivalent of a "check" move in the game of Go (as I'm sure we all know by now), while "Sente" is a move that counters "Atari." It was to be the vehicle for Bushnell's "comeback," but unfortunately, it didn't work out quite that way: with the exception of Hat Trick, Sente never produced any breakthrough hits, and Bushnell's idea of a cartridge-based arcade platform fizzled because Pizza Time went bankrupt before Sente could produce any games for it; I think Snake Pit was the only one that was finished.

[Rev. Rob]

I hate to say it, because I think Shigeru Miyamoto has less talent left than Blue Oyster Cult, but yes. SMB was the first game of its kind. It was a fucking revolution. It wasn't a single screen of shooting baddies, nor was it just a few screes of "adventure." It was a bonafied legitimate side scrolling adventure that introduced gamers to a whole new world which they had never seen before. It helped, significantly, to revitalize the industry and to change game design forever. With that said, fuck Mario games, and Miyamoto can choke on a herpes infested cock.

 

Edit:

 

That said, what really caused the crash isn't so simple as what "internet history" makes it out to be. Interviews with members of Imagic, for example, clearly show that retailer glut was a leading factor. Retailers were ordering far more product than they could move, and not knowing this third parties were filling orders with glee. Once retailers realized they couldn't move games, they reduced orders, and not just for games, but for consoles as well. Also, there were too many consoles. Atari had two, and both were competing with ColecoVision, and Intellivision. That's four major console, unheard of in any point before or since. That's not to mention that Vectrex, Zircon, Emerson, and others, were trying to be in the game. There were probably too many consoles. However, if retailers didn't drastically over estimate, then Warner would've never dumped Atari, and the marked would've continued steadily. The 7800 would've been released years sooner, and Atari Would've launched the NES. The world of gaming today would be totally different.

Edited January 24, 2011 by Rev. Rob

[Retro Rogue]

Super Mario Bros. was a launch title in North America, it just wasn't the pack-in originally.

 

It was a late comer to the test launch, arriving sometime in November. The packaging, manual, etc. wasn't done until the end of October.

 

 

 

Regarding the original poster's question, Nintendo certainly deserves kudos for restrengthening and reshaping the market through it's dominance. However, several factors need to be understood. 1) The crash was a US phenomenon. It was not overseas. 2) Within the US, all three companies started on equal footing as far as the market and as well as media perception as has already been shown. 3) Was SMB a major title for Nintendo? Certainly. But I think equating Nintendo's breakout success in 1987 after the '86 Christmas season to a single game would not be giving credit to what NOA itself managed to accomplish as a company here during that time period.

Edited January 24, 2011 by wgungfu

[Rev. Rob]

I don't think there's any logic to the argument that the SMS and 7800 were ever on even footing with the NES.

[Retro Rogue]

I don't think there's any logic to the argument that the SMS and 7800 were ever on even footing with the NES.

 

Rob, that was already shown in previous threads. The June (Summer) '86 CES coverage (which I linked and/or quote previously as well) presented all three consoles as equals and a sign that the industry may be reviving. Remember, the NES had yet to hit a national launch yet at that point. In fact the market was still seen with trepidation by those in the electronics industry, and the fact that "new" consoles were entering the market were met with surprise to some ("So it was a surprise to see two companies introducing major new lines of home video games." - referring to Nintendo and Sega, Chronicle Telegram, Jul 25th-1986). Nintendo didn't start being promoted more favorably in the press until in to the National launch that Fall/Christmas, and even then that was presented on the strength of it's Japanese performance and two test marketings (the failed New York and much better LA test) as a forecast of what to possibly expect here. Curt and myself have put in a lot of time in to researching this while going through material for our projects. It's not an off the cuff statement. Additionally, Atarian63 has also previously shared his experience as a retailer in New York during that time period with regards to the NES and the 7800 to further illustrate things. If you're unfamiliar with the press of the time and other related issues, making comments on logic is itself is illogical.

Edited January 24, 2011 by wgungfu