Why was USA behind in videogaming after VCS/apple 2/C64

[tom]

Usually USA lead in that field, but after VCS/C64/Apple ][ USA decided to go nuts over NES, when here in Europe we embraced the Amiga/ST with 1000s of excellent games coming from the UK/European coders.
What went wrong? Why didn't USA go with 16-bit Amiga/ST but revert back to 8-bit NES?
Did it have something to do with the PC, slowly creeping up from behind? Brainwashed by Nintendo's marketing strategy?
Let me know why the 16-bitters failed in the USA.

[BlastProcessing402]

There was a gaming crash in the 80's in the US. Even Nintendo had to invent ROB to get the NES into stores at all, by marketing it as a toy instead of a videogame.

[Griking]

I think that a lot of people moved on from C64s and Apples to Windows based PCs and got into computer gaming. That's the way that it was with me and most of my friends at least. For as good as NES games were they just couldn't compare with the depth of a good PC game IMO.

[Aussie2B]

There was a gaming crash in the 80's in the US. Even Nintendo had to invent ROB to get the NES into stores at all, by marketing it as a toy instead of a videogame.

Maybe with ROB, but in general Nintendo was avoiding the "toy" image. Hence the "entertainment system" title rather than pushing it as something for kids that just plays video games (even if that was the reality) and redesigning the system to resemble a VCR rather than the candy-coated look of the Famicom.

Anyway, Japan took over just because there were so many great games with fresh ideas. They also knew to keep price points reasonable and accessible to everybody. Atari was stuck in the past and only got more and more disappointing as the years went on. Most other Western companies trying to throw their hats into the ring had no flippin' clue what they were doing, like with the CD-i and 3DO. The Amiga is a whole different conversation since it's a computer and not nearly as accessible as something reasonably cheap that you just hook up to your TV and play games on. And even now, while there are Amiga fans, most retro gamers don't feel the Amiga game library is as strong as those on NES, SNES, Genesis, etc.

[Sunnyvale]

I know that as a kid in the early 80's, after the NES hit the market, Atari was almost a dirty word for quite q while. Too many dissapointing ports, too much third party ass, too much money for unpolished games. And that stigma stuck with them, despite some gems they produced.

[Bojay1997]

Usually USA lead in that field, but after VCS/C64/Apple ][ USA decided to go nuts over NES, when here in Europe we embraced the Amiga/ST with 1000s of excellent games coming from the UK/European coders.
What went wrong? Why didn't USA go with 16-bit Amiga/ST but revert back to 8-bit NES?
Did it have something to do with the PC, slowly creeping up from behind? Brainwashed by Nintendo's marketing strategy?
Let me know why the 16-bitters failed in the USA.

Actually, there was a pretty vibrant Amiga gaming market here in the US, although admittedly not as huge as the European market and admittedly it was largely based on piracy. I would agree that the ST was a much bigger flop and other than Federated and local Atari dealers/mail order, I never really saw the games available at US retail.

I know I was able to buy Amiga games at Gamestop/EB/Babbage's/Software Etc., the Navy Exchange, local Commodore dealers, mail order and even at smaller department stores like Fedco. As others have pointed out, however, it was quickly eclipsed by the PC as the primary home computer gaming platform in the US. I had several school friends whose parents bought the PC as a serious business/word processing tool but allowed them to install a SVGA card, a sound card and joystick making the PC a solid gaming machine. Also, by the time the Amiga and ST were really hitting the height of their popularity in late 1989 through 1991, people had already switched over to the Sega Genesis rather than the NES. In fact, there was a local Amiga dealer in Los Angeles that was giving a discount if you bought an Amiga 500 and a Sega Genesis at the same time. I don't think the 16 bitters so much failed as just the Amiga and ST did over here.

[Tupin]

I figured it was that so many little start-up companies made PC clones. Amigas were used extensively in video editing in the USA, though.

Americans wanted business machines, and IBM projected that better than Commodore (toy computers) or Atari (video games).

Plus, the convenience and price of a console was pretty tempting. Why spend thousands on an Amiga and time to configure it when you can buy an NES and just play? Sure, it was less impressive technologically, but the games were still fun.

[BlastProcessing402]

Maybe with ROB, but in general Nintendo was avoiding the "toy" image. Hence the "entertainment system" title rather than pushing it as something for kids that just plays video games (even if that was the reality) and redesigning the system to resemble a VCR rather than the candy-coated look of the Famicom.

The main thing they were avoiding was "video game" not toy. It was a pretty brilliant move on Nintendo's part, as buyers for the toy and department stores weren't going to touch a video game system with a 10 foot pole at the time. The redesign was part of that as well, sure. Anything to keep it distinct from the systems from before the crash.

[homerhomer]

Hmm,

I guess we've always looked at it as two different markets. Computers and Consoles. But with that said. The Pong generation here in the US was done, arcades were seedy and closing in my hometown, consoles were expensive and ports of your favorites sucked. I go out on a limb here and blame Atari, because it held the lion share of the console market back in the day. The issue was Atari, kept releasing and re-releasing the same games/console with marginal updates in graphics and sound. The 5200 was a hardware nightmare and the last hope the 7800 was shelved, and then later released once Nintendo got in the game.

Atari's name was tarnished here in the US. We got a IBM clone from Epson ( 8088 based dual floppy thing ) for $1,500 and it was for school. So I wasn't able allowed to install games on it. But later on I did and CGA graphics and PC sound chip sucked bad.

I can still remember being amazed by what the Nintendo could do. I convinced my brother to go halves on it so I saved up paper route money and we got it. I couldn't believe that Super Mario Bro's was in my house. Next up SMS, Genesis and then SNES

[RPG_Fanatic]

The Japanese just simply made better games back in the 80's & 90's.

[Griking]

The Japanese just simply made better games back in the 80's & 90's.

I strongly disagree. There were tons of really good games made by US companies, it's just that most of them were made for computers and not consoles.

[Jim]

I strongly disagree. There were tons of really good games made by US companies, it's just that most of them were made for computers and not consoles.

This. Most big hit PC games of the 80s and 90s that I can recall were North American produced. Nintendo, Sega and later Sony totally dominated the console market. I'd say the Japanese ruled the console world pretty much unchallenged until Microsoft launched Xbox in 2001.

[98PaceCar]

I strongly disagree. There were tons of really good games made by US companies, it's just that most of them were made for computers and not consoles.

QFT. The misconception that there was a gaming crash is completely incorrect and I cringe every time somebody says it like that. Yes, there was a crash within Atari which impacted console gaming severely, but the market had already already started to move towards computer gaming rather than console prior to the bulk of Atari's issues. The decline of Atari and the rise of Commodore created a market ripe for computer gaming to take over, which is what happened.

[Greg2600]

The 80's were ruled for the most part by Arcade game ports on consoles. The majority were American-designed games, though many were Japanese.

[TurboGenesis]

QFT. The misconception that there was a gaming crash is completely incorrect and I cringe every time somebody says it like that. Yes, there was a crash within Atari which impacted console gaming severely, but the market had already already started to move towards computer gaming rather than console prior to the bulk of Atari's issues. The decline of Atari and the rise of Commodore created a market ripe for computer gaming to take over, which is what happened.

But consoles such as Colecovision, as well as Intellivision, and Vectrex, also crashed out… and while console gameing may have been on the outs, they were tooled to be expanded into computers… Coleco and Mattel has their computer add ons on market (Atari never delivered their expansions for either the 5200 or 7800)

And I can only recall on my own experience, but computers and gaming never took hold in my community while I was growing up in the 1980s… they were restrictive in their price, and I had only known a handful of kids whose family had a computer of any type… when the NES had come to market, by 1988, Almost everyone I knew had one… I remember reading an article in the Detroit Free Press sometime around 1990-1991 and it had a stat that 1 in 3 homes had a NES…

I will say I was never aware that there was a "crash" in the mid 1980s, but I was at the age of 8-10 during the peek of the "crash"

[Berserker]

I really think the Amiga's failure over here was from lack of consumer exposure. If more people simply knew about it, I think it would've sold itself. I mean, the games it had in the late 80s looked like what most people never saw outside of arcades until the early to mid 90s. It was quite literally a 16-bit video game console disguised as a computer, but with all the benefits of the latter.

I would've worn my dad's ear off trying to get him to buy it had I known about it in its day. I think a lot of other kids would have too.

[Bojay1997]

But consoles such as Colecovision, as well as Intellivision, and Vectrex, also crashed out… and while console gameing may have been on the outs, they were tooled to be expanded into computers… Coleco and Mattel has their computer add ons on market (Atari never delivered their expansions for either the 5200 or 7800)

And I can only recall on my own experience, but computers and gaming never took hold in my community while I was growing up in the 1980s… they were restrictive in their price, and I had only known a handful of kids whose family had a computer of any type… when the NES had come to market, by 1988, Almost everyone I knew had one… I remember reading an article in the Detroit Free Press sometime around 1990-1991 and it had a stat that 1 in 3 homes had a NES…

I will say I was never aware that there was a "crash" in the mid 1980s, but I was at the age of 8-10 during the peek of the "crash"

You might be right that it was geographic in nature and possibly socio-economic. I grew up in a middle-class to upper middle-class area in San Diego, California and I would say at least a third of the kids I went to junior high and high school with had access to a PC or other computer at home in the late 80s and early 90s. Some of them still had C64s, Apple IIe and other word processing system as well even if they didn't play games. I will say that in my high school of 1500 kids, there were only eight Amiga owners that I knew of because we started a school computer club (I know, super dorky). In retrospect, that seems like a lot, but most of us also owned C64s prior to that, so it just was the natural progression. I will say that there were at least four Amiga/Commodore dealers in San Diego from the mid-80s up until the mid-90s, so it was definately a strong Commodore town.

[98PaceCar]

But consoles such as Colecovision, as well as Intellivision, and Vectrex, also crashed out… and while console gameing may have been on the outs, they were tooled to be expanded into computers… Coleco and Mattel has their computer add ons on market (Atari never delivered their expansions for either the 5200 or 7800)

And I can only recall on my own experience, but computers and gaming never took hold in my community while I was growing up in the 1980s… they were restrictive in their price, and I had only known a handful of kids whose family had a computer of any type… when the NES had come to market, by 1988, Almost everyone I knew had one… I remember reading an article in the Detroit Free Press sometime around 1990-1991 and it had a stat that 1 in 3 homes had a NES…

I will say I was never aware that there was a "crash" in the mid 1980s, but I was at the age of 8-10 during the peek of the "crash"

I wasn't much older than you at the time of the crash, but I do remember being able to buy console games for near nothing (25 cent 2600 carts all over the place and such). But, that only seemed to be commonplace at the same time I remember seeing rows of computer software in stores.

One thing I always hold in my beliefs is that it's not the kids that are driving video game markets. Rather, it was the folks in their late teens and early 20's at that point in history and those that are even older now. Given the deep market penetration that the early computers enjoyed and the rate at which they were adopted, I think it's only natural that the market would have shifted away from what were traditionally considered to be toys to something more mature. Also, a lot of the people that are said to have been burned by the poor QC in console games would have likely moved to computers anyway as their interests matured.

No doubt that both console gaming and arcades took a major hit in the mid 80s (with arcades barely surviving and never reaching the same levels they enjoyed in the early 80s), but I really don't see how that can be entirely blamed on Atari or any other console manufacturer. I really feel that by then, computers had far outstripped what the consoles of the day were capable of and the market would have shifted anyway. Even with the NES, console games and computer games had started to drift apart in terms of capabilities and content. NES was sort of a rebirth of consoles, but mainly due to a fresh batch of kids coming into gaming while the previous batch were firmly embedded in the computers of the day.

To say there was a crash in consoles, sure. To say there was a general video game crash is just misinformed. It was a market shift that followed the progression of technology, nothing more. Consoles just happened to be the losers at that point in time as they were the older technology that had not kept up.

[Sunnyvale]

QFT. The misconception that there was a gaming crash is completely incorrect and I cringe every time somebody says it like that. Yes, there was a crash within Atari which impacted console gaming severely, but the market had already already started to move towards computer gaming rather than console prior to the bulk of Atari's issues. The decline of Atari and the rise of Commodore created a market ripe for computer gaming to take over, which is what happened.

Computer gaming didn't take off until the mid-nineties, from my memory. And even then, it's a handful. For every collector of PC games and systems, there are a dozen retro console gamers. But even back in the day... Crash of 83. NES in 85. 2 years of PC dominance. And I don't remember it that way. But I was a munchkin, so memory is subjective as hell. At any rate, All the games that the PC ever had that were amazing have been ported. Because more gamers rock consoles, and use their PC's as tools. Not saying the ports were worth a shit, mind you... Eh, all the thrifts want $3.00 a console cart, a buck a PC game. Not completely accurate, but a great barometer.

[Bojay1997]

Computer gaming didn't take off until the mid-nineties, from my memory. And even then, it's a handful. For every collector of PC games and systems, there are a dozen retro console gamers. But even back in the day... Crash of 83. NES in 85. 2 years of PC dominance. And I don't remember it that way. But I was a munchkin, so memory is subjective as hell. At any rate, All the games that the PC ever had that were amazing have been ported. Because more gamers rock consoles, and use their PC's as tools. Not saying the ports were worth a shit, mind you... Eh, all the thrifts want $3.00 a console cart, a buck a PC game. Not completely accurate, but a great barometer.

That's not accurate at all. A number of major retail stores had computer game sections in the mid-1980s and many even sold various computers like the Commodore 64, the Atari 800XL, etc...and there were computer software stores all over the place including Egghead, Babbage's, Software Etc...The Commodore 64 alone sold something like 8 million units in the United States in the 80s. The Apple II sold almost as many.

Not even close to every great PC game was ported. There are literally thousands of good and great PC and home computer games that never hit consoles. How does present sales price at a thrift have anything to do with popularity at the time? Beanie Babies are dirt cheap today, but I recall them being massively popular and commanding crazy prices on the secondary market for several years. You're right that fewer people probably collect PC games, possibly because services like GOG and others have made older games easier to download on newer PCs. The varying PC requirements for games from the late 80s until fairly recently for games makes collecting something of a challenge, even with DosBox.

[98PaceCar]

Computer gaming didn't take off until the mid-nineties, from my memory. And even then, it's a handful. For every collector of PC games and systems, there are a dozen retro console gamers. But even back in the day... Crash of 83. NES in 85. 2 years of PC dominance. And I don't remember it that way. But I was a munchkin, so memory is subjective as hell. At any rate, All the games that the PC ever had that were amazing have been ported. Because more gamers rock consoles, and use their PC's as tools. Not saying the ports were worth a shit, mind you... Eh, all the thrifts want $3.00 a console cart, a buck a PC game. Not completely accurate, but a great barometer.


You're thinking of PC (x86) gaming, not computer gaming. The known library of "commercial" releases for the C64 stands at somewhere north of 19,000 games right now, worldwide (based on the Gamebase library). Add in the libraries of Apple and even the Atari 8 bit line and there were a lot of computer users during the time of the "crash" and after.

[swlovinist]

Here are my thoughts on the matter: I dont think there is a black and white answer, nor is it one thing.

I think that the question itself is bias and leads me to think that you are probably a computer gamer. Both sides of the world developed very different tastes for videogames, one does not make one another good vs. bad.

Amiga and Atari St computing was terribly advertised. It was but a fraction of the computer market, which was slowly being taken over by the IBM PC market.

We had an Atari ST back in the day(my brothers). It was just not as supported as an IBM computer was. We lived out in the middle of nowhere so everything had to be purchased though mail. My brother loved his ST for games, but did regret not getting an IBM since some of his friends had one.

Price is yet another issue. Computers were still vastly more expensive. Sure they could do alot more, but the price differences were significant.

Console gaming tended to be geared more for multiplayer, was able to be played on any TV set(which also was usually bigger than a computer monitor), and was HEAVILY advertised EVERYWHERE. Amiga and ST stuff was found at some computer stores, but was just not found in a ton of places.

How about we agree that both consoles and computers have their strengths and weaknesses? I for one grew up with both the NES and Classic Computing. For me the choice was easy: All my friends had the NES, I was able to rent NES games at the video store in town, The exposure to NES games back in the day was 100:1 to Atari St games.

[xelement5x]

I had the NES and C64 as a kid (heck the C64, monitor and tons of other stuff is sitting at my parent's place), and I played the NES a fair amount, but the C64 a lot. We only had a few NES games, so if I wanted something different I needed to beg my parents for it or rent the game.

However, with the C64 there were several boxes of a floppy disks with a ton of games and stuff on them that I would play all the time. Looking back on it I'm sure the majority of it was pirated, but it makes me wonder where my parents got them from. I played with that a lot more than the NES, and even learned BASIC with that machine back in the day. My Dad even hooked the NES up to the C64 monitor as well so I could switch whichever I wanted to play so it wasn't an ease of use issue.

However, once the Genesis came out and I was able to save up and buy one, I went to console gaming and never looked back. Part of that may have been my personal investment in the Genesis, but I didn't even try PC games again until the late 90s with titles like Shogo.

[NeoZeedeater]

I'm glad people are debunking crash myths in this thread. I always shake my head when I read about gaming supposedly being dead at any time in the '80s.

Anyway, I think there were a variety of factors that made the 8-bit and 16-bit computer situations so different in North America. Some of this was touched a bit already -

The C64 (and other 8-bit computers) in the early-mid '80s were offering experiences that made them more appealing than the consoles and many parents were buying them as their first home computers. It wasn't long before C64s were low priced (especially when hooked to a TV instead of buying a monitor) and sizable community of game copying developed. I don't recall the prices but I don't think Amigas and STs reached console-comparable price tags like the C64 did. I knew a lot of C64 owners but very few Amiga owners (I'm on the West coast of Canada, BTW). Maybe some of it was caused by cost. I'm sure a lot of it was caused by Nintendo-mania and later on the success of the Genesis as well.

Nintendo's advertising here was like nothing seen before (the fancy kiosks, TV ads, Nintendo Power, etc.). As awesome as computer gaming was, it was never really advertised to the masses for video games and Sega/Tonka's advertising of the SMS was a joke in comparison so it had no chance of commercial success. The C64 was lucky to have word-of-mouth in its early years when consoles weren't being advertised much. The Amiga was in a market of a different culture.

It also seems that Europeans became quite attached to Euro-style games in a way that the rest of the world didn't. Those types of games dominated the Spectrum and others in the UK. It's a shame more North Americans weren't exposed to them. I can't imagine my gaming youth without having experienced the Last Ninja series, Skool Daze, Head Over Heels, Barbarian, and many others.

[theclaw]

I'd actually go so far as to say worldwide no single model of an entertainment electronic device in any industry sector (meaning gaming-aimed computers, TVs, mobiles, consoles, etc), before or since has ever achieved a greater market success than NES in the US did. Period.

NES was it here. Not just a bubble or fad either. The console today continues to command a degree of loyalty this long after death, few other devices could have begun to dream for.

[Aussie2B]

I think you guys are being a tad nitpicky if you're bothered by people talking about the game industry crash. Everybody knows that it's referring to consoles and arcades, and, for those, it holds perfectly true. While some people made the leap from consoles to computers (and sometimes back to consoles), for many, console/arcade gaming and computer gaming are two very different realms. I don't have any figures, but I think it's pretty safe to say that the majority of American households in the 80s (let alone the early to mid 80s) didn't have a computer, so as far as most people were concerned, video games were dead. Heck, many households didn't have a computer for much of the 90s either.

[Sunnyvale]

That's not accurate at all. A number of major retail stores had computer game sections in the mid-1980s and many even sold various computers like the Commodore 64, the Atari 800XL, etc...and there were computer software stores all over the place including Egghead, Babbage's, Software Etc...The Commodore 64 alone sold something like 8 million units in the United States in the 80s. The Apple II sold almost as many.

Not even close to every great PC game was ported. There are literally thousands of good and great PC and home computer games that never hit consoles. How does present sales price at a thrift have anything to do with popularity at the time? Beanie Babies are dirt cheap today, but I recall them being massively popular and commanding crazy prices on the secondary market for several years. You're right that fewer people probably collect PC games, possibly because services like GOG and others have made older games easier to download on newer PCs. The varying PC requirements for games from the late 80s until fairly recently for games makes collecting something of a challenge, even with DosBox.

Popularity of Beanie Babies compared to RARE, HTF PC games isn't even apples and oranges. I saw hundreds of Beanies this month at yard sales. Guess how many C64 or Apple II programs? Goose Egg. Yet, with a handful of exceptions, they have basically the same value as the Beanies. PC gaming wasn't BIG until the mid-90's. Sure, there were C64's and Apples and Tandy's and all of that, but Apples were seldom game machines, and over half of the C64's were used for business or personal finance I'd wager. If a PC game gets rave reviews, look for it on yer XBOX soon. Even Diablo, Starcraft, CnC...
EVer since there has been PC games, there's always been some PC gamers. But it was a small margin of the gaming community, and even now isn't nearly as popular as console gaming.

And pointing out that a rare PC game is nigh worthless 90% of the time IS a valid barometer of popularity. Why is the oh-so-common Mario 3 cart worth more than Karnov, considerably less common? Popularity. Pac Man for the NES is worth 5 times that the Atari 400/800 cart is. And it's WAY more common.

Edit: The varying PC requirements of the 80's makes PLAYING the games a challenge, not collecting them. I got a stack of 3do games, but no 3do. And is it really any more challenging then acquiring an O1 or an Astrocade? Like Aussie2B said, most homes didn't even have a PC until the mid-90's.

[NeoZeedeater]

I think you guys are being a tad nitpicky if you're bothered by people talking about the game industry crash. Everybody knows that it's referring to consoles and arcades, and, for those, it holds perfectly true. While some people made the leap from consoles to computers (and sometimes back to consoles), for many, console/arcade gaming and computer gaming are two very different realms. I don't have any figures, but I think it's pretty safe to say that the majority of American households in the 80s (let alone the early to mid 80s) didn't have a computer, so as far as most people were concerned, video games were dead. Heck, many households didn't have a computer for much of the 90s either.
I don`t know, arcades in the `80s seemed to go from insanely popular to fairly popular. It was a decline but nothing close to death back then.

[theclaw]

It doesn't seem the console and arcade decline relation was all that strong. Arcades I thought took a gentler drop off as the string of early innovative titles slowed down.

[Buyatari]

The crash had a lot to do with it. Many of the leading US companies ran out of business. Once Nintendo came back on the scene many US companies weren't quick to jump back in.

[Bojay1997]

Popularity of Beanie Babies compared to RARE, HTF PC games isn't even apples and oranges. I saw hundreds of Beanies this month at yard sales. Guess how many C64 or Apple II programs? Goose Egg. Yet, with a handful of exceptions, they have basically the same value as the Beanies. PC gaming wasn't BIG until the mid-90's. Sure, there were C64's and Apples and Tandy's and all of that, but Apples were seldom game machines, and over half of the C64's were used for business or personal finance I'd wager. If a PC game gets rave reviews, look for it on yer XBOX soon. Even Diablo, Starcraft, CnC...
EVer since there has been PC games, there's always been some PC gamers. But it was a small margin of the gaming community, and even now isn't nearly as popular as console gaming.

And pointing out that a rare PC game is nigh worthless 90% of the time IS a valid barometer of popularity. Why is the oh-so-common Mario 3 cart worth more than Karnov, considerably less common? Popularity. Pac Man for the NES is worth 5 times that the Atari 400/800 cart is. And it's WAY more common.

Edit: The varying PC requirements of the 80's makes PLAYING the games a challenge, not collecting them. I got a stack of 3do games, but no 3do. And is it really any more challenging then acquiring an O1 or an Astrocade? Like Aussie2B said, most homes didn't even have a PC until the mid-90's.

I don't know a single person that ever did much serious business stuff with their Commodore 64 or their Apple II for that matter. Sure, I know lots of parents who were convinced by advertising that the computers would be great educational tools for their kids, but every kid I know who had one ended up using it primarily for gaming. Admittedly, everyone I knew back then also pirated most of their games, so it's hard to say how many computer gamers there were back then since you can't really use the number of legitimate copies of a game out there as a measure of how many people played it. There is no doubt that computer games haven't enjoyed the same collectibility as console games in the past, but I am seeing more and more people collecting and early Commodore and Apple stuff is starting to skyrocket. The really popular RPGs like the Ultima series, Sierra stuff, text adventures, etc.. are selling for anywhere from $50 to hundreds of dollars depending on the title and condition. While many PC games are worth very little, so too are most console games. You can't give away most common Atari 2600, Intellivision or Playstation games.

My comment about PC games being harder to collect due to hardware variations is that if you want to actually play them, it's tough to do it with just one PC unless the games work with Dosbox. If you try to play the games on the original hardware, you basically have to have a number of PCs configured with different processors, memory, video cards and sound cards. On the console side, you pretty much only have one set of hardware for each console.

I'm not clear about your comments regarding popular PC games ending up on consoles. I'm assuming you are talking about modern post-2000 or so games. If that's what you're talking about, you're correct, but the real prime of PC games from the late 80s to the mid-90s or so are almost all PC exclusive to this day and have never been released on consoles.

[ReaXan]

This thread has alot of good posts.

Refreshing to go to a forum where people aren't retarded.

[Griking]

And pointing out that a rare PC game is nigh worthless 90% of the time IS a valid barometer of popularity. Why is the oh-so-common Mario 3 cart worth more than Karnov, considerably less common? Popularity. Pac Man for the NES is worth 5 times that the Atari 400/800 cart is. And it's WAY more common.

Why does Mario 3 generally sell for more than Color a Dinosaur which is also considerably less common? Mario is just one of those rare games that's dirt common yet people will still pay a premium for it.

I'm not trying to argue that PC gaming was as popular as console gaming but I feel that it was (and still is) up there. When the console crash came a lot of the smaller game companies folded because they had all of their eggs in one basket. Other companies like Activision not only thrived but grew when they shifted over to the computer market. Electronic Arts was formed in and because of the popularity of computer games. That's two of today's largest game makers

[StealthLurker]

I figured it was that so many little start-up companies made PC clones. Amigas were used extensively in video editing in the USA, though.

Americans wanted business machines, and IBM projected that better than Commodore (toy computers) or Atari (video games).

Plus, the convenience and price of a console was pretty tempting. Why spend thousands on an Amiga and time to configure it when you can buy an NES and just play? Sure, it was less impressive technologically, but the games were still fun.



Yeah that's right, Amiga was the big video editing platform. I remember seeing Amigas sitting on top of VCRs with a genlock on the side. The early 3D computer graphic demos were cool too.

Thousands for an Amiga? I recall getting an A500 brand new for $600ish in the 80s. We already had a PC clone at the time for word processing mostly. However my parents allowed me to get a VGA card & monitor, early soundblaster card and a game/joystick card. Prior to that I was playing everything in monochrome, pc-speaker and keyboard. It vastly improved the gaming experience but the Amiga still heavily outclassed it imho.... and for a fraction of the cost.

I also thought it was cool how the SEGA Master System control pad worked with an Amiga. I never had a joystick for it, SMS pads were my interface of choice.... considering how the NES pad made me forget about joysticks (except for arcades that is).

The next greatest computer in terms of graphics and sound imho (though limited library) readily obtainable in the USA I would say was the Apple IIgs. Even in the early 90s when the 386's, SVGA and CDROM drives got started, I still felt the Amiga was superior in terms of graphics and sound. Not until the 486's and early pentiums hit did I think the PC started to become a big time gaming platform. Before that, gaming was just an afterthought on PCs.

.

[The 1 2 P]

The Japanese just simply made better games back in the 80's & 90's.

As far as consoles go, this was very true in the 80's and early 90's. But today? Things have completely changed.

[Sunnyvale]

I don't know a single person that ever did much serious business stuff with their Commodore 64 or their Apple II for that matter.

I do a lot of scrounging in the wild. I've found 3 C64's this year and one IIc I passed on. Not a one of these systems had a single game. I got C64 printer, a cartridge expander, Simon's Basic, a Super Expander...
Not even a copy of Red Baron. Kids played the PC's for games, but when parents were faced with the $150 2600 or the far more expensive PC's of the day as a gaming system, they chose Atari's.
I'm not saying there were no PC gamers. I'm saying that when compared to console gamers, even post-crash, it was a fringe group until the mid 90's.

[Bojay1997]

I do a lot of scrounging in the wild. I've found 3 C64's this year and one IIc I passed on. Not a one of these systems had a single game. I got C64 printer, a cartridge expander, Simon's Basic, a Super Expander...
Not even a copy of Red Baron. Kids played the PC's for games, but when parents were faced with the $150 2600 or the far more expensive PC's of the day as a gaming system, they chose Atari's.
I'm not saying there were no PC gamers. I'm saying that when compared to console gamers, even post-crash, it was a fringe group until the mid 90's.

Still disagree. There were plenty of computer gamers starting in the mid-80s through the mid-90s. Let me try to make the relative sales numbers a little more clear. The estimates I have seen for total Atari 2600 and clone sales from launch through 1992 are about 30 million total VCS compatible consoles. The Commodore 64 sold between 8 and 10 million units in the US between 1982 and 1994. Another 7-10 million were sold outside of the US for a total of 15-20 million units sold worldwide. That doesn't include the other computers like the Apple II, the PC, the TRS-80, the TI99 and various other lesser known home computers sold in that period. While the Commodore 64 and other home computers undoubtedly sold less hardware than their console contemporaries, they sure as heck weren't as scarce as you seem to think. As I said, almost everyone I knew was pirating software which I'm guessing your local thrift, garage sale and swap meet vendors probably aren't selling. Did boxed retail computer games sell less than many console games? Absolutely and piracy was a huge part of it. That doesn't change the fact that lots of people were playing computer games in the 80s and early 90s.

[j_factor]

Just look at the sheer number of computer games released during that time, and by American companies at that. These games didn't exist in a vacuum.

[NeoZeedeater]

Another reason it's probably hard to find to find early computer games in the wild is that many floppy disks/tapes (and the drives) don't work anymore. That's not the case with cartridges.

That's the shitty thing about magnetic media. The upside back in the day was that they could be produced at a much lower cost than cartridges. I'm guessing that's why so many computer game publishers existed despite the rampant piracy. There was a high profit margin even if the retail sales weren't in the millions.

[A Black Falcon]

Just look at the sheer number of computer games released during that time, and by American companies at that. These games didn't exist in a vacuum.

One good way to tell the '80s/early '90s European games from the American ones, though, is that the European ones are probably on the Amiga, Atari ST, Spectrum, C64, etc., and quite possibly not for the PC at all, while the US ones are usually for PC, and maybe also Apple II/Apple IIGS, Amiga, and for mid '80s games C64... the PC didn't get popular in Europe for some time, but had pretty much locked up the US PC gaming market by the mid '80s pretty much. Certainly by the late '80s, no question.

Anyway, yes, computer gaming was popular in the US. The thing is though, there always has been a split between computer games and console games in the US. They are often sold in different parts of the store, etc. Apparently in Europe this is less true... and yes, I know that pre-Crash all the companies were trying to have computer/console hybrid things, but the effort didn't work, for the most part, the hybrid things failed and the successes were either computers, or consoles. And console gaming, since the NES, was dominated by Japanese games, which led to the perception among console-specific gamers that the Japanese made better games than Westerners did. That isn't true though, never was and never has been. It's just that up until the sixth generation (Xbox, etc.) American game developers mostly just developed for the PC. Starting around the beginning of the last decade, though, American developers mostly moved to a console focus, where it remains now.


Oh, one more thing -- the title says "behind in videogaming after VCS/Apple II/C64"... but the Apple II was successful through the '80s here. The C64 and VCS faded out sometime mid decade (though VCS games did continue to sell through the '80s) too, though... the Apple II particularly overlaps a lot with the NES. It was outdated, sure, but plenty of people (and schools) still had them. I remember using Apple IIs in elementary school in the late '80s/early '90s... And also, by the end of the '80s, PC addons like EGA and the Soundblaster were out, and led to better PC games, which as I said were by that point the focus of US game development.

I mean, the OP just doesn't quite have their timeline right. The PC was never "slowly creeping up from behind", it was clearly in the lead by the mid '80s as a computer, and was the clear leader for computer gaming too by the end of the decade. Even before then games were made for it, even if they were hideous CGA+PC Speaker affairs. Oh, and as for 16/32-bit gaming... DOS was 16-bit, and the 386 is actually 32-bit. There's your 16 and 32 bit gaming, first on PCs, second on the Genesis (and later SNES), both of which course were extremely successful.

[Sunnyvale]

Still disagree. There were plenty of computer gamers starting in the mid-80s through the mid-90s. Let me try to make the relative sales numbers a little more clear. The estimates I have seen for total Atari 2600 and clone sales from launch through 1992 are about 30 million total VCS compatible consoles. The Commodore 64 sold between 8 and 10 million units in the US between 1982 and 1994. Another 7-10 million were sold outside of the US for a total of 15-20 million units sold worldwide. That doesn't include the other computers like the Apple II, the PC, the TRS-80, the TI99 and various other lesser known home computers sold in that period. While the Commodore 64 and other home computers undoubtedly sold less hardware than their console contemporaries, they sure as heck weren't as scarce as you seem to think. As I said, almost everyone I knew was pirating software which I'm guessing your local thrift, garage sale and swap meet vendors probably aren't selling. Did boxed retail computer games sell less than many console games? Absolutely and piracy was a huge part of it. That doesn't change the fact that lots of people were playing computer games in the 80s and early 90s.

I'm not saying there wasn't a lot of PC gamers then. There was bulletin boards, too, but that doesn't mean the net (as it was) was mainstream, or even popular. It was, as I said in my previous post, the fringe of gaming. You cite the numbers of C64's sold, and then say 'what about the IIc', while comparing it soley to the 2600's sales. And you still come up short. And there was how many other popular consoles? Let's put it this way; Ask your average 40 year old what they remember about Pac Man on the ATARI and see which version they tell you about.


Just look at the sheer number of computer games released during that time, and by American companies at that. These games didn't exist in a vacuum.

Not saying they did. People mass produce spell components for Wiccan stores. Mass produce. Does that make it mainstream, or even popular? Fringe groups spend money, too.

[Buyatari]

Not saying they did. People mass produce spell components for Wiccan stores. Mass produce. Does that make it mainstream, or even popular? Fringe groups spend money, too.

I have to agree with this one yeah we are a bunch of nerds so of course some of us never stopped playing games. The rest of the world did.

The Doom phase was pretty big and Myst was pretty big but these two combined were nowhere near the madness of the mid 1980's. There were arcades everywhere and you had to wait in line to play a game. Sometimes 6-8 players deep. I'd play a game and be horrible at it and still there were groups of other kids just watching to see it. They would cheer and laugh etc. Then it all just died. So I hear what you are saying about computers being different but those same kids cheering at the arcade didn't all jump onto a computer, they grew out of it.

PC sales have always been there because there is no licensing. Anyone can put out a game if you want to.

[Bojay1997]

I'm not saying there wasn't a lot of PC gamers then. There was bulletin boards, too, but that doesn't mean the net (as it was) was mainstream, or even popular. It was, as I said in my previous post, the fringe of gaming. You cite the numbers of C64's sold, and then say 'what about the IIc', while comparing it soley to the 2600's sales. And you still come up short. And there was how many other popular consoles? Let's put it this way; Ask your average 40 year old what they remember about Pac Man on the ATARI and see which version they tell you about.



Not saying they did. People mass produce spell components for Wiccan stores. Mass produce. Does that make it mainstream, or even popular? Fringe groups spend money, too.

Actually, that's exactly what you keep saying just in increasingly annoying ways. Wiccan spell component buyers? What is that like a few thousand customers tops? How is that even close to 8-10 million C64 owners in the US?

I'm guessing you're fairly young and missed out on the early 1980s video game/arcade craze and the decade or so that followed when people bought computers pretending they were doing so for education or business but then playing games on a regular basis which is why you keep talking about what you find in the wild or what people your age might remember, but completely disregarding all of the numbers and facts everyone else posting here has presented. 8-10 million of a single model of computer in the United States is hardly the fringe. You're right, it's not Atari 2600 numbers, it's about a third of those. Still at a time when the US had roughly 91 million households, that's about 1 in 10 households with a Commodore 64. Even assuming all of the rest of the computers released in that period only amount to a few more million (and frankly that's very low), that's certainly not fringe. Of course, a fully functional Commodore 64 with a disc drive and other peripherals was also several times the price of a 2600 and an Apple was as much as 5X the 2600 launch price as late as 1984, so it's true that some people may have had the bulk of their computer experiences at school, at the library, at a friend's house, etc...In many high schools and junior highs in the 80s, it was pretty common to have computer classes. I know we had tons of TRS-80s and Apple IIs as late as 1989 and in what was one of the largest districts in Southern California, every high school student had to complete at least one computer class to graduate. Kids were always bringing in pirated games to play and I know our computer teacher even had a plastic case full of pirated games that he would allow us to play from time to time.

From purely anecdotal incidents over the years, on those occasions when I happen to mention to someone at work that I collect video games and computer games, I would say more than 1/2 of the time, they will tell me about how they played one game or another on their Commodore 64 or Apple II. I even had one guy specifically tell me the other day that he loved Space Invaders on his Atari 800 and another guy tell me how he loved Summer Games on the Apple II. I'm in that age group of people in their mid-30s that sort of grew up with Atari (although I really wasn't old enough to own an Atari VCS upon release, I was more in the early 80s generation of gamers), went through the collapse of the early arcades and whose parents wrote video games off but had no problem buying a computer because other parents or teachers or the media were recommending it for educational, word processing or even business purposes. While many more people may have owned 2600s, they sure weren't still playing them in the late 80s, but a lot of them still enjoyed the thrill of gaming, just in a more complex and engrossing manner by doing it on computers.

[Sunnyvale]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and assume your parents had money. That's why they could buy an $800 video game system in the 80's. I'm 36, fyi. My parents didn't have money; it was an Atari or a vacation when I was 5. (We got the Atari) Sorry if I'm rubbing you the wrong way :roll:
I'm starting to think you're not trying to get what I'm saying. There's a lot of weird fringe groups (Wiccans included). PC gamers were one of those groups in the 80's. There were hundreds of thousands of PC gamers in the States in those days, maybe even millions. But to equate it with the popularity of consoles...
It's like comparing the popularity of Blues to the popularity of Heavy Metal. Millions of Blues fans, no denying it. Nowhere near as popular.
I get where you're coming from. I love Sega. Always have. I want to leap to the defense of the Saturn or DC all the time. But the reality of it is, I'm in the fringe there. Did Sega sell millions of dollars worth of crap? Hell yes. Did half of your friends have SMS and half NES? I think not. Genesis was their one glory moment, like the mid-90's were for PC gaming.

Edit: Citing 8 million units sold and then pointing out they were in every school (I remember) doesn't exactly help your case.

[Buyatari]

Does anyone have sales by year for the C64 in the US? It hung around afterwards but I can't see huge numbers after the crash. I do know that the Texas Instruments computers were sold on the education/business angle and sales for it just fell out on the Ti994/a during the crash. They cut the price to almost nothing and ceased shortly after. Atari computer sales also suffered after the crash. Not sure about Apple.

I don't have data to back this up and I'm mostly going off of my feelings of the day. Games just sort of went away in mainsteam America. You didn't have the media coverage of the mid 80's. Kind of like popular music today where you would hear something in the news every now and then to let you know it was still there yet it lacked the presence it did before. It no longer had the hold on mainsteam America that created Pacmania etc.

[Bojay1997]

Does anyone have sales by year for the C64 in the US? It hung around afterwards but I can't see huge numbers after the crash. I do know that the Texas Instruments computers were sold on the education/business angle and sales for it just fell out on the Ti994/a during the crash. They cut the price to almost nothing and ceased shortly after. Atari computer sales also suffered after the crash. Not sure about Apple.

I don't have data to back this up and I'm mostly going off of my feelings of the day. Games just sort of went away in mainsteam America. You didn't have the media coverage of the mid 80's. Kind of like popular music today where you would hear something in the news every now and then to let you know it was still there yet it lacked the presence it did before. It no longer had the hold on mainsteam America that created Pacmania etc.

Almost all of the Commodore 64 sales were post-crash. In fact, it didn't even get released until August 1982 in the US and between 1983 and 1986, it's estimated that it sold 2 million units per year worldwide. I'll agree with you that the TI and Atari 8 bits were largely out of mass market retailers after about 1984 or so, but many regional department stores in Southern California like Gemco, Fedco, etc...stocked Commodore games well into the late 80s. I agree with you that the coverage changed and it wasn't the mass media darling of the arcade and early console days, but lots of people still played games and it just became something people did rather than reading or watching on the news.

[Sunnyvale]

Does anyone have sales by year for the C64 in the US? It hung around afterwards but I can't see huge numbers after the crash. I do know that the Texas Instruments computers were sold on the education/business angle and sales for it just fell out on the Ti994/a during the crash. They cut the price to almost nothing and ceased shortly after. Atari computer sales also suffered after the crash. Not sure about Apple.

I don't have data to back this up and I'm mostly going off of my feelings of the day. Games just sort of went away in mainsteam America. You didn't have the media coverage of the mid 80's. Kind of like popular music today where you would hear something in the news every now and then to let you know it was still there yet it lacked the presence it did before. It no longer had the hold on mainsteam America that created Pacmania etc.

I looked around a bit... There's not even any verification of the total C64 units sold. There actually seems to be a bit of a geek-troversy about that one. I did see that they sold the most units in the states when they started taking in anything computer-related in on trade for $100 credit. Your 2600, Colecovision, Vectrex... All of these would get you $100 in store credit. Literally riding Atari's coattails.

[98PaceCar]

I don't have data to back this up and I'm mostly going off of my feelings of the day. Games just sort of went away in mainsteam America. You didn't have the media coverage of the mid 80's. Kind of like popular music today where you would hear something in the news every now and then to let you know it was still there yet it lacked the presence it did before. It no longer had the hold on mainsteam America that created Pacmania etc.

But wouldn't it be fair to say that a lot of the initial mainstream coverage of video gaming came about because for the most part, the early 80's was when video games initially became more or less mainstream, or at least out in the open to the world? We're seeing the same thing now with coverage of smartphones and tablets. The technology is new and exciting, so articles are all over the place.

Given time, something different will come along and steal the media attention. That doesn't imply that the previous media darling is dead and gone, just that the media has moved on to something different or perhaps even more exciting. I certainly don't feel that media coverage is necessary for something to be considered mainstream.

I've said it a couple of times already, but I'll say it again. There was definately a shift in the overall video gaming marketplace, but not a total crash. The story of Atari (as a company) was a very sexy, American success story which led to a lot of people being very interested in what they were doing. When they failed and the market moved on to newer platforms, there wasn't a true successor for a while so things appeared to have totally gone away. If you just analyze the companies that emerged from the "crash" by either shifting to computer gaming (Activision) or being born of computer gaming (EA), that speaks a lot to the power of the early computer video gaming market which wasn't really born until late 82 and after.

When the NES came out, yes, there was another divergence in the market and nobody will disupte the fact that they got people re-interested in console gaming, but the interim years were not devoid of video gaming. To the contrary, there were some amazing advancements during that time that are still influencing games today.

[NeoZeedeater]

That perfectly sums it up. No one’s saying the mid ‘80s were close to being video gaming’s most popular era or anything, just that it wasn’t a dead medium from either a commercial or innovation standpoint. You could still go to any mall and find plenty of new releases in the computer game sections and arcades. It wasn’t a barren landscape with nothing but $2 clearance Atari games.

Yeah, I do get nitpicky when the crash gets mentioned but it’s in the interest of wanting video game history to be recorded accurately. While many people at a site like this might recall what happened, there are plenty of places on the internet where NES fans want to deify that system as having “saved the industry”, as if the market and game design innovation had completely vanished, and SMB was some magical force destined to resurrect it. It’s an epic story but a rose-tinted one that only focuses on part of the market. Nintendo’s success is an amazing tale as is; it doesn’t need any misleading info added to it.

[Kiddo]

For my own perspective on this: My family got game consoles, and never got any PCs until the Windows 95 era (and thus, the focus was on the internet boom, not gaming.).

My schools had Apple IIs for a really long time, until they eventually switched to Mac OSX-compatible computers. The Macs had a lot more fun games on them than the Apple IIs, from my perspective. Math Munchers beats "tell a frog to move on the screen" any day.

I always saw videogames in terms of the console market as a real young kid, and thus was unfamiliar with much Computer-game-wise that predates Doom.

[Bojay1997]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and assume your parents had money. That's why they could buy an $800 video game system in the 80's. I'm 36, fyi. My parents didn't have money; it was an Atari or a vacation when I was 5. (We got the Atari) Sorry if I'm rubbing you the wrong way :roll:
I'm starting to think you're not trying to get what I'm saying. There's a lot of weird fringe groups (Wiccans included). PC gamers were one of those groups in the 80's. There were hundreds of thousands of PC gamers in the States in those days, maybe even millions. But to equate it with the popularity of consoles...
It's like comparing the popularity of Blues to the popularity of Heavy Metal. Millions of Blues fans, no denying it. Nowhere near as popular.
I get where you're coming from. I love Sega. Always have. I want to leap to the defense of the Saturn or DC all the time. But the reality of it is, I'm in the fringe there. Did Sega sell millions of dollars worth of crap? Hell yes. Did half of your friends have SMS and half NES? I think not. Genesis was their one glory moment, like the mid-90's were for PC gaming.

Edit: Citing 8 million units sold and then pointing out they were in every school (I remember) doesn't exactly help your case.

Actually, my parents didn't have much money nor did my friends and yet I ended up with a C64 and had three close friends who owned one as well. I saved up for my Commodore by working everything from a paper route to lawn care to getting a freelance writing gig at the local newspaper (ironically, I did computer game reviews and movie reviews for their weekly young adult supplement) all while I was still under 14 years old. I finally got one in 1986 at $450 brand new for the computer and 1541 drive. Yes, almost $500 was a good chunk of money in the mid-80s, but it wasn't out of reach for a lot of middle class families, especially since many people held onto technology longer back then.

I took a consevative approach to the number of Commodores sold as I have seen the Guiness book number of 30 million and agree it's high. 8-10 million for the US seems pretty accurate based on the serial number analysis done on a few sites and Commodore's annual reports. I think 98PaceCar summed it up best when he described the post-crash market as transitional and less in the media, but one that nevertheless existed and thrived, just not at the levels Atari acheived in the 1978-1982 period. As another data point, when Babbage's and Software Etc. meged in 1994, they had a combined 700 stores and $500 million in annual sales. Now, admittedly, by that point both were selling console games again, but I can recall when B. Dalton Software Etc. opened locations in San Diego in the late 80s, none of them sold console games at all for the first few years.

I think you need to re-read my posts. I never saw a single Commodore 64 in a school just like I never saw a Commodore 64 being used by a small business or any business for that matter. In fact, the only Commodore product I ever saw in a school was a couple of Pet computers in the very early 80s that my elementary school teacher had won in a grant contest. Apple and to a lesser extent Radio Shack/Tandy dominated those education buyers until the Mac and PC came along and took over that market.

[Atarileaf]

QFT. The misconception that there was a gaming crash is completely incorrect and I cringe every time somebody says it like that. Yes, there was a crash within Atari which impacted console gaming severely, but the market had already already started to move towards computer gaming rather than console prior to the bulk of Atari's issues. The decline of Atari and the rise of Commodore created a market ripe for computer gaming to take over, which is what happened.

I think the point is more that the video game consoles crashed, not the whole video gaming industry. Even before, during, and after the crash I was using my Tandy color computer, playing games, buying software, etc. Things just went merrily along and if you didn't own any kind of console, just a computer, you'd be unaware that a crash ever occurred.

But it did happen.

[Atarileaf]

I do a lot of scrounging in the wild. I've found 3 C64's this year and one IIc I passed on. Not a one of these systems had a single game. I got C64 printer, a cartridge expander, Simon's Basic, a Super Expander...
Not even a copy of Red Baron. Kids played the PC's for games, but when parents were faced with the $150 2600 or the far more expensive PC's of the day as a gaming system, they chose Atari's.
I'm not saying there were no PC gamers. I'm saying that when compared to console gamers, even post-crash, it was a fringe group until the mid 90's.

That's an awfully small sample size to base any kind of logical opinion on.

[Buyatari]

Almost all of the Commodore 64 sales were post-crash. In fact, it didn't even get released until August 1982 in the US and between 1983 and 1986, it's estimated that it sold 2 million units per year worldwide. I'll agree with you that the TI and Atari 8 bits were largely out of mass market retailers after about 1984 or so, but many regional department stores in Southern California like Gemco, Fedco, etc...stocked Commodore games well into the late 80s. I agree with you that the coverage changed and it wasn't the mass media darling of the arcade and early console days, but lots of people still played games and it just became something people did rather than reading or watching on the news.

The videogame crash was more of a gradual process than a single day in history and is considered to be from 1983-1985 so I can't see the majority of US sales coming after this. Still if there is data there to back it up I would love to see it.

When were the newer models C64C and C128 released? You never see those in the wild it is always the older style system.

[Buyatari]

I think the point is more that the video game consoles crashed, not the whole video gaming industry. Even before, during, and after the crash I was using my Tandy color computer, playing games, buying software, etc. Things just went merrily along and if you didn't own any kind of console, just a computer, you'd be unaware that a crash ever occurred.

But it did happen.

I guess he makes the point that not all system were sold to those who played even a single game. Software sales would a good gauge but those numbers must be impossible to determine as it wasn't all licensed and you also had a huge problem with piracy.

[Bojay1997]

The videogame crash was more of a gradual process than a single day in history and is considered to be from 1983-1985 so I can't see the majority of US sales coming after this. Still if there is data there to back it up I would love to see it.

When were the newer models C64C and C128 released? You never see those in the wild it is always the older style system.

The 64C and 1541C were released in late 1986 as that's the one I owned/own. I believe the C128D was also released in late 1986 as I recall it being an option when I was shopping. There's a pretty well researched article on Ars Technica about computer market share that is linked below. The author estimates 1.25 million C64s sold in 1989 down from 2 million per year from 1984-1987. 1989 was about the last year I remember mainstream stores carrying any kind of C64 games at retail. After that it was pretty much all PC and console stuff with some specialty retailers selling Amiga stuff (I know Babbage's and Software Etc. did but it wasn't a large selection).

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/12/total-share.ars/1

[Sunnyvale]

That's an awfully small sample size to base any kind of logical opinion on.

You say that as if I made that statement alone, with nothing else on this thread. Yes, I wouldn't call that goor proof. Just an example of the state of things.

[Buyatari]

The 64C and 1541C were released in late 1986 as that's the one I owned/own. I believe the C128D was also released in late 1986 as I recall it being an option when I was shopping. There's a pretty well researched article on Ars Technica about computer market share that is linked below. The author estimates 1.25 million C64s sold in 1989 down from 2 million per year from 1984-1987. 1989 was about the last year I remember mainstream stores carrying any kind of C64 games at retail. After that it was pretty much all PC and console stuff with some specialty retailers selling Amiga stuff (I know Babbage's and Software Etc. did but it wasn't a large selection).

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/12/total-share.ars/1

Just based on my experience collecting and the numbers of these units found I would argue that (in the US at least) many many more C64s were sold than both C64Cs and C128s combined. That article you site is bit too big for me to tackle. Were these numbers you posted worldwide or US only? I always thought the C64 was bigger overseas in its later years.

[Sunnyvale]

Actually, my parents didn't have much money nor did my friends and yet I ended up with a C64 and had three close friends who owned one as well. I saved up for my Commodore by working everything from a paper route to lawn care to getting a freelance writing gig at the local newspaper (ironically, I did computer game reviews and movie reviews for their weekly young adult supplement) all while I was still under 14 years old. I finally got one in 1986 at $450 brand new for the computer and 1541 drive. Yes, almost $500 was a good chunk of money in the mid-80s, but it wasn't out of reach for a lot of middle class families, especially since many people held onto technology longer back then.

I took a consevative approach to the number of Commodores sold as I have seen the Guiness book number of 30 million and agree it's high. 8-10 million for the US seems pretty accurate based on the serial number analysis done on a few sites and Commodore's annual reports. I think 98PaceCar summed it up best when he described the post-crash market as transitional and less in the media, but one that nevertheless existed and thrived, just not at the levels Atari acheived in the 1978-1982 period. As another data point, when Babbage's and Software Etc. meged in 1994, they had a combined 700 stores and $500 million in annual sales. Now, admittedly, by that point both were selling console games again, but I can recall when B. Dalton Software Etc. opened locations in San Diego in the late 80s, none of them sold console games at all for the first few years.

I think you need to re-read my posts. I never saw a single Commodore 64 in a school just like I never saw a Commodore 64 being used by a small business or any business for that matter. In fact, the only Commodore product I ever saw in a school was a couple of Pet computers in the very early 80s that my elementary school teacher had won in a grant contest. Apple and to a lesser extent Radio Shack/Tandy dominated those education buyers until the Mac and PC came along and took over that market.

OK, so you saved up $500 in the 80's as a kid to get your PC, and you think this was what everyone was doing? Impressive, yes. Par? No. In my childhood, dad came home with a IIc sometime in the early 80's. It had Space Quarks and Lemonade Stand on it. I used to sneak downstairs to play Space Quarks, as the penalty for playing games on the PC was all but death. I remeber him shelling out $200 for a second disc drive. It was NOT a toy in my childhood. In the later 80's, one of my friends got a C128, and I played some real games on it, not Oregon Trail or Odell Lake.
It seems you're mistaking me for one of those NES fanboys spoke of earlier that would claim Mario saved Pac-Man's ass. Heck, I was 8 in 83. Didn't even notice the video game crash, except that I got more Atari games for birthdays and Christmas. Just never saw much PC gaming going on period until Wolfenstein, really.


Actually, that's exactly what you keep saying just in increasingly annoying ways. Wiccan spell component buyers? What is that like a few thousand customers tops? How is that even close to 8-10 million C64 owners in the US?

I'm guessing you're fairly young and missed out on the early 1980s video game/arcade craze and the decade or so that followed when people bought computers pretending they were doing so for education or business but then playing games on a regular basis which is why you keep talking about what you find in the wild or what people your age might remember, but completely disregarding all of the numbers and facts everyone else posting here has presented. 8-10 million of a single model of computer in the United States is hardly the fringe. You're right, it's not Atari 2600 numbers, it's about a third of those. Still at a time when the US had roughly 91 million households, that's about 1 in 10 households with a Commodore 64. Even assuming all of the rest of the computers released in that period only amount to a few more million (and frankly that's very low), that's certainly not fringe. Of course, a fully functional Commodore 64 with a disc drive and other peripherals was also several times the price of a 2600 and an Apple was as much as 5X the 2600 launch price as late as 1984, so it's true that some people may have had the bulk of their computer experiences at school, at the library, at a friend's house, etc...In many high schools and junior highs in the 80s, it was pretty common to have computer classes. I know we had tons of TRS-80s and Apple IIs as late as 1989 and in what was one of the largest districts in Southern California, every high school student had to complete at least one computer class to graduate. Kids were always bringing in pirated games to play and I know our computer teacher even had a plastic case full of pirated games that he would allow us to play from time to time.

From purely anecdotal incidents over the years, on those occasions when I happen to mention to someone at work that I collect video games and computer games, I would say more than 1/2 of the time, they will tell me about how they played one game or another on their Commodore 64 or Apple II. I even had one guy specifically tell me the other day that he loved Space Invaders on his Atari 800 and another guy tell me how he loved Summer Games on the Apple II. I'm in that age group of people in their mid-30s that sort of grew up with Atari (although I really wasn't old enough to own an Atari VCS upon release, I was more in the early 80s generation of gamers), went through the collapse of the early arcades and whose parents wrote video games off but had no problem buying a computer because other parents or teachers or the media were recommending it for educational, word processing or even business purposes. While many more people may have owned 2600s, they sure weren't still playing them in the late 80s, but a lot of them still enjoyed the thrill of gaming, just in a more complex and engrossing manner by doing it on computers.

Please re-read the second paragraph of this post, and you will see why I thought you were speaking of C64's when you were talking of the prevalence of PC's in schools.
Kinda like how the last paragraph of that post would lead one to believe your parents bought you your Commodore.

[Bojay1997]

Just based on my experience collecting and the numbers of these units found I would argue that (in the US at least) many many more C64s were sold than both C64Cs and C128s combined. That article you site is bit too big for me to tackle. Were these numbers you posted worldwide or US only? I always thought the C64 was bigger overseas in its later years.

I would agree with that. In fact, when I bought my 64C, the same store still had a stack of the new original C64 model for I believe $99 and I continued to see plenty of new C64s for a number of years after the 64C was released. Even more recent interviews with the Tramiel family would support the theory that they were overproducing the original 64 in the 1984-1985 period when they were supposedly producing as many as 400K units per month at the peak, but still only selling 2 million a year. I know many Commodore dealers carried the C128, but I almost never saw them at the regular retail and department stores where the C64 was being sold. In fact, I only knew one person growing up that had a C128 and the only reason his parents bought it was for the additional column display for word processing. Of course, he never even got a printer, so it was essentially a waste of RAM and money since all he ever did was game on it.

There really was no reason to go with the 64C as the specs were identical, the only difference was the slightly flatter case and color. I guess the addition of the GEOS software, the free Q Link trial and matching 1200 baud Commodore modem which I bought a couple months later and the modern looking case just seemed like a good incentive to spend the extra $100 for the 64C.

The 8-10 million number is US only. Overseas, the numbers are a little higher (10-12 million) for a worldwide total of 17-22 million. Like I said, Guiness and several recent news articles are claiming 30+ million, but since the mid-90s, many Commodore collectors have accepted 20 million total worldwide as the best estimate given all the ranges in different sources.

[j_factor]

The C128 simply wasn't a popular product. Its extra hardware was very rarely used in games, and people after a computer for "serious" applications were usually in the market for something more advanced. After the 16-bit computers came out, the C64 was still quite marketable as a budget machine. The C128 was too expensive to be budget, and far too limited to be comparable to the Amiga and its competitors.

[sniperCCJVQ]

I didnt contributed to the topic but i did read every replies and this topic is very insightful as alot of point of views and ideas that come up on some possible explaination of "the crash"

I would suggest to made this post "sticky" on the very top

[icbrkr]

The C128 simply wasn't a popular product. Its extra hardware was very rarely used in games, and people after a computer for "serious" applications were usually in the market for something more advanced. After the 16-bit computers came out, the C64 was still quite marketable as a budget machine. The C128 was too expensive to be budget, and far too limited to be comparable to the Amiga and its competitors.

Surprisingly though, the C128 *did* sell 4 million units so it wasn't really a failure. However, most of the time the 128 was sitting in C64 mode for compatibility. I used my C64 (and 128) until 1993 as my machine machine before I switched to an Amiga.