Nintendo of America's Poor NES Memories. . .

[ColecoFan1981]

I'm wondering if Nintendo of America (NOA) has had poor memories as to the exact release date when the NES and Super Mario Bros. was released, as if such milestones don't matter to them anymore in the face of increasing losses caused by the failure of the WiiU and 3DS systems? What I do understand is that the system had had a limited launch, being available only in New York when initially introduced here around October or November 1985, and that the nationwide release wasn't until September 1986, nearly one year after its New York test launch.

In researching back issues of one of my local newspapers, The Oregonian, the NES didn't go on sale in Portland, OR until June 1986.

~Ben

[Jorpho]

It's hardly as if Nintendo's problems over the last two or three years suddenly obliterated their memory. It's simply that back in 1985, no one cared to keep track of these things.

It's all been flogged to death now, so you can refrain from checking back issues of your local newspaper.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/167392/sad_but_true_we_cant_prove_when_.php?print=1

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

I'm wondering if Nintendo of America (NOA) has had poor memories as to the exact release date when the NES and Super Mario Bros. was released, as if such milestones don't matter to them anymore in the face of increasing losses caused by the failure of the WiiU and 3DS systems? What I do understand is that the system had had a limited launch, being available only in New York when initially introduced here around October or November 1985, and that the nationwide release wasn't until September 1986, nearly one year after its New York test launch.

In researching back issues of one of my local newspapers, The Oregonian, the NES didn't go on sale in Portland, OR until June 1986.

~Ben

The 3DS is actually selling like hot cakes.

[The Adventurer]

Gangbuster brand Hot Cakes

[Leo_A]

The 3DS is actually selling like hot cakes.

Hardly

It has sold just a small fraction of that of the DS which went up against the PSP which was a huge success for Sony. Not only that, but sales have been declining for a while now for this platform, sales this quarter were way down from the same quarter a year ago, and sales for this year were forecast to merely be stagnant (Which itself will be a difficult task given Q1's poor performance). And it should be added that they didn't even come close to meeting last year's projections when the verdict was read at its conclusion, a situation I predict will be repeated (For the 3DS, I have a hunch they underestimated the Wii U this year).

An individual at another forum recently didn't like someone's post about Nintendo's handheld performance being on the weak side this generation and countered by stating that it has sold 16 million systems alone in Japan at this point. But at this same point for the DS, after looking it up in Nintendo's own sales history that it keeps updated on the Japanese site, it had sold over 70 million systems in just Japan.

Sort of says it all...

[Tanooki]

Ehhh that can't tell what year SMB stuff is wrong. My mom bought us the NES in 1985 and picked up Hogan's Alley and Super Mario Bros for under the Christmas tree later in the year. She had all that stuff hidden away from some point in October or November of 1985. I obviously have no receipt, she wouldn't, nor remember when that was bought 30 years later, but anyone saying the game popped up in 1986 is full of it. I've never lived in New York, ours came from the LA(area) launch in California. Shame they didn't date stuff better or mark it somehow, still have the original cart, sleeve and manual (no box.)

That piece on gamasutra has enough ammo there to support Oct 1985 too between old Macy ads, an m82 display, the game release date in Smash Bros, and more.

[TonyTheTiger]

They probably didn't have "street dates" the way we do now. There might be a shipping date listed somewhere deep in Nintendo's record archives but I'm assuming stores would just put the stuff out once they got them or when they felt was most economically sensible, possibly with certain retailers getting preferential treatment. That could result in some variation from place to place as to day and date of releases.

[Mayhem]

Exactly. The NES released at different dates across the US, so the only true date really would be to figure out what the earliest release date was.

[Tanooki]

Yeah it's a soft test in 1985, then when they sold most of it out and saw people being interested they started a slow roll out over the next year to get it all over the place. I don't think it was up until maybe 15 years ago that you had solid set dates on a lot of product like DVDs, CDs, and games where they'd ship the prior week, hit the store on a Monday and then if there was not 'set' dates being requested it was on the shelf Tuesday. Before that, stuff just got kind of thrown on a truck and sent out, and again unless there was a requested day (like the old planet mario face thing for SMB3) or Mortal Monday, it just rolled out as it arrived.

[tom]

Game Over says the NES hit (test market) New York before Christmas 1985 (50.000 out of 100.000 sold) and Los Angeles February 1986 (slow sales due to the time of year). After that was Chicago, San Francisco and some towns in Texas. By end of 86 1 million units sold.

[Gamevet]

Ehhh that can't tell what year SMB stuff is wrong. My mom bought us the NES in 1985 and picked up Hogan's Alley and Super Mario Bros for under the Christmas tree later in the year. She had all that stuff hidden away from some point in October or November of 1985. I obviously have no receipt, she wouldn't, nor remember when that was bought 30 years later, but anyone saying the game popped up in 1986 is full of it. I've never lived in New York, ours came from the LA(area) launch in California. Shame they didn't date stuff better or mark it somehow, still have the original cart, sleeve and manual (no box.)

That piece on gamasutra has enough ammo there to support Oct 1985 too between old Macy ads, an m82 display, the game release date in Smash Bros, and more.

If you really had one of those, it would be worth thousands to a collector.

It was test marketed (as stated above)in NYC only in 1985, and in the LA area in January of 1986.

[Kevincal]

So here is what Nintendo should do. Rerelease the NES, exact same system, just new units. And make some new NES games. :) Sell the system for $69.99 with Super Mario Bros. 4 packed in.

Then, 5 years from now, do the same thing with rereleased the SNES, then the N64. To hell with new stuff. :) And sega could come back with Genesis again too. :D No actually wait, they could finally come out with the 32X Genesis combo. Ya.

[Rickstilwell1]

To me, a test market date would count because anybody could have flown out to said area and gotten one if they wanted to that badly for the expensive price. If they had a family or friend out there who told them about it over the phone they could have someone pick it up for them and send it in the mail. They could have even spread word to their friends about it and had their New York family buy multiple and reimburse them.

It probably works the same way with people who used to import Japanese consoles back then. It was rare but people still did it somehow. Usually by making flights to Japan themselves and seeing these things in stores.

[Tanooki]

Look I know what I had when I got it, so if she didn't get it from LA then it was mail ordered and shipped from the east coast.

Either way, no I don't have the non-marked Deluxe Set anymore, everything of it other than Duck Hunt and manual are gone, I'm even on a second copy of Hogan's Alley, but my SMB is all original and it wasn't a pack-in. I just felt no reason at the time to keep it when an offer popped up. Had this guy come over when I was back in CA just a few years selling stuff off and he bought up some games, but then saw the NES plugged in, I didn't name a price but he offered up 100 for the loose deck, 2 controllers and the wires and given I had a toploader and the sharp nes tv already I saw no reason not to as the kid looked super happy just seeing it. I don't recall the serial number on it well but I'm fairly certain it was in the low 100k level.


I think kevincal is right, but Nintendo is too short sighted, arrogant, and prideful to do that. They see more good in greed buying new hardware and digital copies shoveled out for $5-10 a pop. Even if they could cheaply reproduce the original systems and games again, I bet you there wouldn't be enough money in it after an initial 'OH SHIT' moment boom for a season or year and it would taper off.

[Jorpho]

Nintendo is too short sighted, arrogant, and prideful to do that. They see more good in greed buying new hardware and digital copies shoveled out for $5-10 a pop. Even if they could cheaply reproduce the original systems and games again, I bet you there wouldn't be enough money in it after an initial 'OH SHIT' moment boom for a season or year and it would taper off.So they see more good in greed because they don't want to embark on another money-losing venture?

[Gamevet]

Look I know what I had when I got it, so if she didn't get it from LA then it was mail ordered and shipped from the east coast.

Either way, no I don't have the non-marked Deluxe Set anymore, everything of it other than Duck Hunt and manual are gone, I'm even on a second copy of Hogan's Alley, but my SMB is all original and it wasn't a pack-in. I just felt no reason at the time to keep it when an offer popped up. Had this guy come over when I was back in CA just a few years selling stuff off and he bought up some games, but then saw the NES plugged in, I didn't name a price but he offered up 100 for the loose deck, 2 controllers and the wires and given I had a toploader and the sharp nes tv already I saw no reason not to as the kid looked super happy just seeing it. I don't recall the serial number on it well but I'm fairly certain it was in the low 100k level.

Yeah, you got the set that was brought to the LA area in early 1986. NYC was the only area where the console was available in North America in 1985. Howard Lincoln stated that he was part of the group the worked throughout the fall of 1985 to setup test market displays throughout the NYC area. It's well documented in Game Over and Ultimate History of Videogames, and even when Kent was questioned about it (years later), he talked about his conversations with Lincoln on the subject. There's even some debate about the release of Super Mario Bros. during that test market run in NYC, and it was believed that only a small amount of the title was shipped directly from Japan for the day 1 launch. Lincoln says that the title wasn't officially launched in North America until 1986.

I had read (Electronic Games) about the Famicom being released in Japan, but really kind of forgot about the console until I saw it in Phoenix during fall of 1986. The only set they had available was the deluxe set selling for $249. I thought the price was pretty outrageous at the time. The 1st time I had seen Super Mario Bros. was in the game room at the local Peter Piper Pizza in 1986.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_OhJ42rS1U

http://www.retrocollect.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=5937


Just gathering interest,got a baby on the way so its time to maybe part with my grail.

New in box, straight from the New York test market batch,this is the Nintendo set that started video-gaming as we know it!
only 100,000 of these were sent to N.Y.C. only for a promotional test run of the NES. you wont find another like this,its stunning to see as probably 99.7% of all of the 100,000 were surly opened and used.

[Tanooki]

So they see more good in greed because they don't want to embark on another money-losing venture?

Basically yes, and no it wouldn't be money losing if they did it the right way. More like one of those ATGames handhelds and portable TV units that take carts but is emulated like the Retron5. If it was straight hardware, it could work, but it's a big risk, the other would just be as the DS fanboys love to say 'prints money.' They'd rather just rake it in having people buy a console, but clearly given how many don't want to buy that thing, a cheap player that would run their carts/roms would likely work out well for them. You do love to snark and get on people you don't agree with don't ya?

[Jorpho]

Basically yes, and no it wouldn't be money losing if they did it the right way.I bet the Wii U and 3DS wouldn't be money-losing either if they did it the right way. Clearly their mistake all along was not doing things the right way.


If it was straight hardware, it could work, but it's a big risk, the other would just be as the DS fanboys love to say 'prints money.' They'd rather just rake it in having people buy a console, So, instead of printing money by taking a big risk, they'd rather just rake it in..? And the Retron5 is just going to make all that money instead..?


You do love to snark and get on people you don't agree with don't ya?The things you are writing are deeply puzzling.

[Tanooki]

I base my writings primarily on past experience in the industry with games and media, and more on the current stuff due to my family who still works within. I can't help if it's puzzling that the stuff I spit out here is just repeated information based on things I get put before me in relation to the new systems.

Also the 3DS isn't a loser in this, it's just not a gainer enough to overcome the stupidity that went into making the WiiU such a flop.

Nintendo's logic makes little sense, it's self centered and narrowly sighted. Yes, they'd rather rake in money only off a big piece of hardware instead of a Retron5 like emulation box. The have far more controls over their own R&D made hardware and they'd rather shovel roms over that than something else to make money. I never said it was smart, but that's what they do. If they were that concerned in tapping their old stuff in more ways to make cash they would, but they don't and really haven't outside of the VC, the GBA "NES" series a decade ago, Animal Crossing (GC) and little else. Nintendo if they're one thing, they're control freaks and they'll take it to whatever extreme.

[Jorpho]

Nintendo's logic makes little sense, it's self centered and narrowly sighted. Yes, they'd rather rake in money only off a big piece of hardware instead of a Retron5 like emulation box. The have far more controls over their own R&D made hardware and they'd rather shovel roms over that than something else to make money.I don't know what your "past expierence" is like, but I honestly can't make the slightest sense of what you are saying. Are you suggesting that if Nintendo made their own "Retron5 like emulation box" – something to use cartridges that haven't been made in twenty years – then despite being their own R&D-made big piece of hardware, they wouldn't have control over it? And somehow they would make larger profits than they currently do from the Virtual Console?


If they were that concerned in tapping their old stuff in more ways to make cash they would, but they don't and really haven't outside of the VC, the GBA "NES" series a decade ago, Animal Crossing (GC) and little else.And because of that, they're "greedy" and "self-centered" for some strange reason? Perhaps you are using these words in some sense that I am not familiar with.

[spman]

Hard release dates didn't really become a thing until the latter half of the 90's for the most part. Big releases generally had them, but a lot of things just sort of rolled out slowly over time. If you lived in a big city, you generally got stuff right away when it was available. If you were in middle of no where Wisconsin, you might not see some games for months, if you ever saw them at all. Availability was also an issue as well, stores might only get one shipment of a certain title in, and that was it. You might have to spend weeks following leads if you were looking to track down some games.

[Tanooki]

No offense but you seem to be the only one having an issue with my post. I'm saying they could do a closed emulation box, like Sega and AT Games did with the Sega Genesis, with the option of a cartridge port on the top to do with as they wish (make their own, let the market use what is out there.) I'm saying they could make more profit than just doing the virtual console alone. Clearly outside of the 3DS people are not very interested in Nintendo consoles anymore on the whole after years, generations in gaming, of going their own way and driving off most people to Sony and MS, if not just to the home computer. A cheap emulation box, and they are looking at what Sega through AT Games can charge for their junk, could be a way to rake in more dough, not a replacement, a supplement.

As it is now we see a lot of the talk from the outside pushing against their Japanese office of expanding out to other devices on top of smart phone/tablet type stuff to make more money as they're hurting worse and worse as things continue down the road they're on now. I'd think anything they could do at this rate which isn't the same old crap with consoles alone that could bring in more revenue would be good.

[Jorpho]

I'm saying they could make more profit than just doing the virtual console alone.I have every impression that while VC sales may not have high volume, they almost certainly make up for that in profit margins. Also, what makes you think that what Sega achieves through AT Games is particularly profitable?

[Tanooki]

I don't have anything to cite or I would, but what I've been told is that on the whole, all of Sega's emulation projects from the multiple ATgames devices (keychain sized, LCD based handhelds (3genesis, 1 sms), tv-game closed system, and tv-games closed system but with cart slot(genesis) and then their porting of projects to android, apple, and various consoles/computers with 16bit ROMS have been a steady source of profitable income for them. They continue to keep releasing rom packages and having AT games do those home systems (and handheld that even let you load your own roms on SD card) because it gets their name out there and they make money off it from people who may have a computer/console already or those just wanting something in their pocket or plugged into a tv a/v out jacks. The costs going into it, especially just the ROM downloads/package discs are so cheap, and minimal effort goes into it so they keep it up.

VC sales don't have super high volume but the more popular stuff moves quite well, and you can kind of see third party wise at least what really rolls when they 3x over release the things from wii->3ds->wiiu now. Square caught onto the profit of it, and now they have some of their DS and SNES projects up on tablets.

[TheChristoph]

Hardly

It has sold just a small fraction of that of the DS which went up against the PSP which was a huge success for Sony. Not only that, but sales have been declining for a while now for this platform, sales this quarter were way down from the same quarter a year ago, and sales for this year were forecast to merely be stagnant (Which itself will be a difficult task given Q1's poor performance). And it should be added that they didn't even come close to meeting last year's projections when the verdict was read at its conclusion, a situation I predict will be repeated (For the 3DS, I have a hunch they underestimated the Wii U this year).

An individual at another forum recently didn't like someone's post about Nintendo's handheld performance being on the weak side this generation and countered by stating that it has sold 16 million systems alone in Japan at this point. But at this same point for the DS, after looking it up in Nintendo's own sales history that it keeps updated on the Japanese site, it had sold over 70 million systems in just Japan.

Sort of says it all...

"This thing is a sales failure because it isn't selling as well as the most popular gaming device of all time." O_O

[Leo_A]

"This thing is a sales failure because it isn't selling as well as the most popular gaming device of all time." O_O

Woah there, that's not what I said. I disagreed that it was selling like "hot cakes", I didn't say that it was a failure.

Nitpicking here since it absolutely doesn't matter, but I believe that the PS2 still holds a narrow edge with a million or two in additional units sold. That said, even with the removal of the DS from the equation which I disagree with since this is the direct follow-up to it, there's a lot there that demonstrates that this is a troubled business for Nintendo that has been a struggle this generation that doesn't appear set to get any easier.

Even though it's well liked, well built, has a solid library of 1st party releases, and is presumably profitable, its sales performance isn't very Nintendo handheld-esque. They're going to narrowly win this battle, but their hold on the portable front is the weakest it has been since 1995 or so right before the Game Boy Pocket and the Pokemon craze gave the Game Boy its second wind (Which was on the fast track out at the time).

It's not selling like hot cakes, unfortunately.

[SparTonberry]

They're going to narrowly win this battle, but their hold on the portable front is the weakest it has been since 1995 or so right before the Game Boy Pocket and the Pokemon craze gave the Game Boy its second wind (Which was on the fast track out at the time).

Oh really? Am I the only one who never noticed Game Boy "dying" pre-Pokemon?

I mean they didn't really have big competition then.
The closest was Sega, but the Game Gear still kind of struggled to get the same amount of third-party support the GB had (no Capcom, no Konami, and even Namco I think might've only released games like Pac-Man and baseball that they'd release on almost everything. Just to name a few.)
Atari was pretty much dead at that point (officially so in early '96, I believe).
And Tiger... was Tiger. :P

[Leo_A]

Major publishers were abandoning it en masse and it was starting to disappear (Check out Capcom's record, for instance). Pokemon and a redesign rejuvenated it and gave this aging 8 bit handheld from 1989 its second wind and another half decade of life (Although judging by MobyGames, it didn't lead to much more actual development happening despite its rebirth).

This is the best I can do on short notice to substantiate that claim since Nintendo doesn't have annual reports posted from the 1990's and their sales sheet only goes back to the 1998 fiscal year.

http://www.academia.edu/4676252/S_w_901A13_NINTENDO_-_THE_LAUNCH_OF_GAME_BOY_COLOR_INTRODUCTION

At the end are exhibits with sales data showing how quickly the Game Boy was declining and that Nintendo's success with Pokemon jump started a system that was on its way out by 1995.


I mean they didn't really have big competition then.P

It wasn't competition that was behind it that time, it was Nintendo themselves letting it wither on the vine. I presume they were too preoccupied with the Nintendo 64 launch to give it the necessary attention, but they didn't seem to have a clear vision of how to go forward with their handheld line in 1995.

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

So here is what Nintendo should do. Rerelease the NES, exact same system, just new units. And make some new NES games. :) Sell the system for $69.99 with Super Mario Bros. 4 packed in.

Then, 5 years from now, do the same thing with rereleased the SNES, then the N64. To hell with new stuff. :) And sega could come back with Genesis again too. :D No actually wait, they could finally come out with the 32X Genesis combo. Ya.

But we don't want Retron to go out of business, do we?

[ccovell]

Major publishers were abandoning it en masse and it was starting to disappear (Check out Capcom's record, for instance). Pokemon and a redesign rejuvenated it and gave this aging 8 bit handheld from 1989 its second wind and another half decade of life (Although judging by MobyGames, it didn't lead to much more actual development happening despite its rebirth).

In terms of popular mindshare, I'd say the GB was almost dead in 1995-96. I know it's not scientific, but games released tells a lot:
http://www.chrismcovell.com/images/GBChart1.gif

Pokemon indeed jump-started the moribund GB, and I'd say the GB market was "rejuvenated" by supply-side production and promotion (that's a polite way of saying saturating the market and fooling kiddie consumers into believing that the next monster collect-a-thon was what they wanted.)
http://www.chrismcovell.com/images/GbChart4a.gif

[Captain_N77]

Hardly

It has sold just a small fraction of that of the DS which went up against the PSP which was a huge success for Sony. Not only that, but sales have been declining for a while now for this platform, sales this quarter were way down from the same quarter a year ago, and sales for this year were forecast to merely be stagnant (Which itself will be a difficult task given Q1's poor performance). And it should be added that they didn't even come close to meeting last year's projections when the verdict was read at its conclusion, a situation I predict will be repeated (For the 3DS, I have a hunch they underestimated the Wii U this year).

An individual at another forum recently didn't like someone's post about Nintendo's handheld performance being on the weak side this generation and countered by stating that it has sold 16 million systems alone in Japan at this point. But at this same point for the DS, after looking it up in Nintendo's own sales history that it keeps updated on the Japanese site, it had sold over 70 million systems in just Japan.

Sort of says it all...

70 million systems in just Japan? No system has ever sold 70 million systems in single any region, let alone Japan. The 3DS has currently sold roughly 1/2 of of what the DS sold in it's lifespan in Japan.

And I personally would not say that the PS was a huge success for Sony. It sold a lot of systems, and not a lot of software relative to that. It is amazing how many people bought it for piracy alone. To this day I see PSP's being sold on craigslist loaded down with pirated games, and I'm in not even in a huge city like L.A., N.Y., or Chicago. So this, along with many other bits of evidence point to a lot of people either used their personal PSP's to pirate software, sold PSP's loaded with pirated software for profit, or both. I'd say the PSP was a success in that it survived against the DS, and it would be a success if SONY actually made a profit on the system. But with the insane amounts of piracy that the PSP was home to, that might be more difficult to quantify.

[Tanooki]

Oh really? Am I the only one who never noticed Game Boy "dying" pre-Pokemon?

I mean they didn't really have big competition then.
The closest was Sega, but the Game Gear still kind of struggled to get the same amount of third-party support the GB had (no Capcom, no Konami, and even Namco I think might've only released games like Pac-Man and baseball that they'd release on almost everything. Just to name a few.)
Atari was pretty much dead at that point (officially so in early '96, I believe).
And Tiger... was Tiger. :P

No I saw it and it was disturbing as I loved that thing. Game Gear was starting to beat its ass and took over a 1/3 of the market from when GB was holding like 90%+ not much earlier. They were losing space, black and white wasn't cutting it nor was the limitations they put to the GB for cost reasons (as always) so they colorized it a bit, maxed out the cpu, put more memory and boom, stop-gap GBC pops up and claws back a good bit of the bleeding until GBA arrived. Of course with GBC Sega ups the ante with the battery whore Nomad to go up against that and the Turbo Express.



Also that point against the PSP is very valid (old PS too) as they did sell a great amount of hardware, but the game sales, primarily PSP were not where they had to be for the hardware. The internet, ease of copying/downloading, just outright warezing the shit out of both those systems held them back software side (game profit) for sony and its developers. PSP got royally fucked the worst. I remember owning it and finding out the stories with piracy and the effects coming to a head with MGS Peacewalker where they didn't even sell a million units, yet there were millions of warez downloads that could be quantified with whatever info was out there causing Konami to pull the plug on the thing as it was a financial loss, on a MGS game of all things. It's no surprise they'd re-release it as they did to finally get some profit off that one. That Peacewalker financial raping caused me to sell the system eventually as so many projects other than barfy cutey JRPGs were coming out that I had nothing left to play which sucked as I like that system a lot.

[Leo_A]

70 million systems in just Japan? No system has ever sold 70 million systems in single any region, let alone Japan. The 3DS has currently sold roughly 1/2 of of what the DS sold in it's lifespan in Japan.


I indeed seemed to have screwed up my math. Looks like I totaled the worldwide figure for the first four fiscal years of the DS, not the Japanese one like I intended to do.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/library/historical_data/pdf/consolidated_sales_e1406.pdf


And I personally would not say that the PS was a huge success for Sony. It sold a lot of systems, and not a lot of software relative to that. It is amazing how many people bought it for piracy alone.

The attach rate is only about 1.5 games less the last I checked 2 or 3 years ago of that of the DS. There definitely was a dedicated minority of homebrew fans on it, but the vast majority didn't know such a thing even existed.

Regardless, I don't know any other way to portray this one when it hit 80 million units sold. We can argue all day that it didn't succeed as well as it could've or should've, but there's no debate that it was successful. It was the first serious dent in Nintendo's armor in a business they basically created 15 years earlier and they did it on their first try out and against Nintendo's most successful system to date.

It definitely gave the DS, a system not immune itself to easy piracy, far more competition than the Vita has the 3DS, which was the point. The smartphone has dealt a major blow to both Nintendo and Sony, and is why the 3DS, despite its pedigree, is selling in much more modest amounts.

[Jorpho]

No I saw it and it was disturbing as I loved that thing. Game Gear was starting to beat its ass and took over a 1/3 of the market from when GB was holding like 90%+ not much earlier.The Game Gear wasn't doing anything different at that time that it hadn't been doing previously. I still can't name any particular Game Gear exclusive dating from that time. The likes of Sonic Labyrinth weren't exactly turning heads.


nor was the limitations they put to the GB for cost reasons (as always)...Why would anyone design a product with limitations if not for cost reasons?

[Gameguy]

...Why would anyone design a product with limitations if not for cost reasons?
The Game Boy lacked backlighting for increased battery life, it wasn't mainly about cost savings. The extra battery life got people to choose it over the TurboExpress, Game Gear, or Lynx.

There's also legal reasons. Think of the Retron 5 not playing ROMs from the SD Card slot with the standard firmware.


No I saw it and it was disturbing as I loved that thing. Game Gear was starting to beat its ass and took over a 1/3 of the market from when GB was holding like 90%+ not much earlier. They were losing space, black and white wasn't cutting it nor was the limitations they put to the GB for cost reasons (as always) so they colorized it a bit, maxed out the cpu, put more memory and boom, stop-gap GBC pops up and claws back a good bit of the bleeding until GBA arrived. Of course with GBC Sega ups the ante with the battery whore Nomad to go up against that and the Turbo Express.
So they released the GBC to compete with the Game Gear, even though the Game Gear was already discontinued by that point? So many things are way off with the timing as you've described them. The Nomad was released even before the Game Boy Pocket came out, this has nothing to do with the GBC. Also, the TurboExpress was discontinued around the same time the Nomad was released, I'm pretty sure it was discontinued before the Nomad was released as the Turbo Duo was discontinued just 2 months after the Nomad launched.


Also that point against the PSP is very valid (old PS too) as they did sell a great amount of hardware, but the game sales, primarily PSP were not where they had to be for the hardware. The internet, ease of copying/downloading, just outright warezing the shit out of both those systems held them back software side (game profit) for sony and its developers. PSP got royally fucked the worst. I remember owning it and finding out the stories with piracy and the effects coming to a head with MGS Peacewalker where they didn't even sell a million units, yet there were millions of warez downloads that could be quantified with whatever info was out there causing Konami to pull the plug on the thing as it was a financial loss, on a MGS game of all things. It's no surprise they'd re-release it as they did to finally get some profit off that one. That Peacewalker financial raping caused me to sell the system eventually as so many projects other than barfy cutey JRPGs were coming out that I had nothing left to play which sucked as I like that system a lot.
A lot of people only bought the PSP to use it as a portable emulation machine, they had no interest in playing actual PSP games with it. That and playing actual PS1 games that they backed up themselves. Plenty of people pirated PSP games, but even more just used it for emulation. The best games on the PSP are remakes of earlier games, there's not a lot that would appeal to the average consumer.

[Leo_A]

There's also legal reasons. Think of the Retron 5 not playing ROMs from the SD Card slot with the standard firmware.

I'm sure that happens from time to time, but I doubt that's why they had unlit screens until the SP (Except for a rare Japanese exclusive Game Boy). You were right, I'm sure, about it being all about battery life.


So they released the GBC to compete with the Game Gear, even though the Game Gear was already discontinued by that point?

Game Gear wasn't discontinued at that time and had just switched hands to Majesco right around this time.

But that's quibbling since its days as any sort of a factor in this marketplace were definitely over by the release of the Game Boy Color. And even in its best of days, it was selling a mere fraction of what the Game Boy was managing. I don't think Nintendo was too concerned about Sega's handheld plans in the late 1990's.


A lot of people only bought the PSP to use it as a portable emulation machine, they had no interest in playing actual PSP games with it.

I'd be shocked to find out that more than 5,000 PSP's were sold to folks that only intended to use them as portable emulation machines.

There's no doubt that millions of these were modified and that its emulation capabilities contributed, but most certainly were done so primarily to enable piracy of PSP software. You can see it in the PSP sales statistics. I think it was 2008 where the hardware saw a significant jump in sales compared to 2007, but software sales basically remained unchanged.

They didn't sell 4 or 5 million additional PSP's over the year before just because people wanted to play classic games on the go. For all its capabilities as a portable emulation machine, it was piracy of PSP software that most were after. Emulation was just a bonus for most folks.

[Gameguy]

Game Gear wasn't discontinued at that time and had just switched hands to Majesco right around this time.

But that's quibbling since its days as any sort of a factor in this marketplace were definitely over by the release of the Game Boy Color. And even in its best of days, it was selling a mere fraction of what the Game Boy was managing. I don't think Nintendo was too concerned about Sega in the late 1990's.
From what I've read the Game Gear was discontinued in 1997 and re-released by Majesco in 2000. The GBC came out in 1998. I really don't remember the exact dates first hand, at this point I'm going by what I can find online.



I'd be shocked to find out that more than 5,000 PSP's were sold to folks that only intended to use them as portable emulation machines.

There's no doubt that millions of these were modified and that its emulation capabilities contributed, but most certainly were done so primarily to enable piracy of PSP software. You can see it in the PSP sales statistics. I think it was 2008 where the hardware saw a significant jump in sales compared to 2007, but software sales basically remained unchanged.

They didn't sell 4 or 5 million additional PSP's over the year before just because people wanted to play classic games on the go. For all its capabilities as a portable emulation machine, it was piracy of PSP software that most were after.
I just remember seeing tons of reviews for the PSP shortly after it came out(maybe a year or two later) saying it was the system to get if you're into emulation, if not a DS would be a better system for proprietary games. I remember one review which I'll post below, it was posted just over a year after the system launched in North America. I forgot about this Youtube guy but I used to watch his stuff way back then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGlee6jDw-s

Everyone talked about emulation with it. I don't remember any games that became super popular for the system, it was always about emulation. Everyone I knew that had one used it for emulators or playing media files. When ScummVM could be run on it, it was a big deal with adventure gamers. I really don't remember much talk about the actual games for it besides here and other game collector sites.

[SparTonberry]

The only would-be competition I can think of would be the WonderSwan (with Gumpei Yokoi behind it, better prematurely kill it. In case the B&W graphics didn't stop it, and maybe Bandai's name on the box. Though the WSC was out a year before the GBA.) and NeoGeo Pocket.

From what I read the last official GG game was The Lost World in 1997.
At least during its proper lifespan. I thought I read Super Battletank was not released until the Majesco rerelease in 2000 (though it was made in like 1994).

[Leo_A]

From what I've read the Game Gear was discontinued in 1997 and re-released by Majesco in 2000. The GBC came out in 1998. I really don't remember the exact dates first hand, at this point I'm going by what I can find online.

Looks like it was 2001, judging by a quick search. I could've sworn that Majesco had already given up on this concept by 2000, leaving the announced $50 Saturn release dead in the water. But it was slightly later.

I'm not sure if Sega had already officially discontinued support, but if it was 2001, I'm sure there was a gap there with it probably absent from most retailers prior to its brief revival. But I wasn't paying attention to the whole deal, it was their Genesis and SuperNes rereleases in the late 1990's that had my attention.