The crash was the catalyst for a huge shift in hardware and game design. The industry instantly switched from Western-dominated to Japan-dominated, which in turn brought completely new styles of game development. Nintendo didn't want to repeat the mistakes of the past, so they purposely sought out a different approach. And while the crash was North American, it still works as a worldwide dividing point because home console gaming was practically nonexistent in Japan prior to the Famicom anyway.
I don't see how that's the case for hardware at all. As I outlined above, the Sega Master System is basically an upgraded Colecovision. The Atari XEGS is very similar to the 5200. And the NES is merely the belated import of a pre-crash console. The 7800 arguably came out during the crash. After those you're at the PC Engine, which is pretty far removed.Originally Posted by Aussie2B
Instantly? There's a significant gap in between the crash and the release of the NES. And that's only the console market, not the entire gaming industry. And I don't see what any of this has to do with "completely new styles of game development". Sure, there were innovative and trend-setting games during this period, but there always are. I'm not sure what difference it makes what country a system comes from, anyway.The industry instantly switched from Western-dominated to Japan-dominated, which in turn brought completely new styles of game development.
Could you be any more vague? What are you talking about, the lockout chip?Nintendo didn't want to repeat the mistakes of the past, so they purposely sought out a different approach.
Ok, except in Japan the Famicom is considered the same generation as SG-1000, which is practically identical to the Colecovision, along with MSX, which is also very very similar hardware.And while the crash was North American, it still works as a worldwide dividing point because home console gaming was practically nonexistent in Japan prior to the Famicom anyway.
Did you read my first post in this topic? I already made perfectly clear what kinds of huge changes took place which divide pre-crash gaming from 8-bit era gaming. I think a gamer would have to willfully put on blinders to not recognize the massive difference in what games and systems were like. It seems like you read my post in the same way as you quoted it, line-by-line with zero regard for context. You're also taking things ridiculously literally. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to realize that I didn't mean "instantly" literally in the sense that the NES came out the day after the crash. Sheesh. I obviously mean that the Western home console business didn't slowly fade away, with the Japanese slowly gaining a foothold. The Western industry crashed hard, while the NES, after debuting, had a meteoric rise to fame, with Nintendo getting an iron grip on the industry. From that point forward, Japan dominated for many, many years.
I think you're overstating it. Yes, gaming changed. But there isn't some bright line with this type of games on one side, and that type of games on the other. The NES still had games like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong on it, while the older systems had games like Gateway to Apshai and War Room. The difference in what games were like happened gradually. If you look at, say, Commodore 64, you'll find that it has a lot of early releases with that "pre-crash style" that you're talking about, along with a lot of middle to later releases that are more along the lines of "NES style" gaming. There was a gap between Coleco/5200 and NES, but there was no gap in the C64 where no games were coming out. Same thing with the Famicom in Japan -- it started off with Donkey Kong and games of that nature, and took time to branch out to more "advanced" stuff.
I just don't see how the SG-1000 can be considered a generation ahead of the Colecovision, when the two are basically the same damn thing.
That's what I was about to bring up. Back then home computers hooked up to the TV, took cartridges and joysticks, were the same power level as consoles of their time and had games of the same style. Commodore 64 was the reason for the crash. It was just considered more useful and advertised itself as a gaming machine just as well as it stated it could do more. It was like the PS3 this generation saying it can do everything. It took a while but eventually people bought in.
The Commodore 64 came out the same year as the Atari 5200 and Colecovision as well - 1982. It did a good job winning the competition during that period. So good it kicked its competition out completely. It was as if it was the PS2 and the 5200 and Colecovision were both Dreamcasts.
[quote name='Shidou Mariya' date='Nov 17 2010, 10:05 PM' post='4889940']
I'm a collector, but only to a certain extent.
Not as extreme as Rickstilwell though.[/quote]
Yep, and the C64 lasted a long time and certainly held its own against the NES. And in Europe they had the Commodore 64 Game System, but it sold terribly because why not just buy a regular C64? Incidentally, Wikipedia includes the C64GS in the same generation as NES (but the C64 itself doesn't count as they don't include computers). The underlying hardware in the C64GS is exactly the same as that of the regular Commodore 64 from 1982.
The concept of "generation" itself is a bit wonky since, for all practical purposes, everyone is running a different race. The competition between contemporaries is more often than not the result of mutual simultaneous success or similar market appeal rather than a universal idea of "console generation" that officiates release schedules and life cycles. It's why a lot of people tend to forget the Dreamcast is "last gen" since it's a bit hard to rationalize it as a PS2/GCN/Xbox contemporary. It being Sega's "next gen" console following the Saturn doesn't really mean much when compared to other followups. So what if the GCN was also Nintendo's follow up to the N64 when the two consoles never really faced off? Hell, it barely faced off with the PS2. Same with the Jaguar and its placement despite having lived mostly during the heyday of the SNES and Genesis. What's really the criteria here?
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 07-31-2012 at 11:07 AM.
To me the criteria is the actual hardware, and to a lesser extent, the general intent when the system was released. Dreamcast is not PSX level hardware; it is comparable to the PS2 and Gamecube. Nor was it intended to be a contemporary competitor to the PSX that rode out the twilight years of the 32-bit era; it was intended as a next-gen offering, hoping to get existing console owners to upgrade. And it was supposed to last longer.
Compare that to the aforementioned Commodore 64GS. It was released in 1990, the same year as the Mega Drive in Europe and the Super Famicom in Japan. It, too, was supposed to last longer. But, the hardware was from 1982 and was not comparable to the Mega Drive. It wasn't really intended to compete with the Mega Drive either, it was aimed at the 8-bit market.
It seems like the criteria jumps around between hardware specs and relevant years. Both the CD-I and 3DO were created with the same overall intent, as a sooper dooper upgrade over the competition, which at the time was the 16 bit consoles. But Wikipedia has the CD-I as fourth gen and the 3DO as fifth. Yeah, there's a two year gap between them but the Genesis and SNES share that same gap.
It's easy enough to recognize a company's followup system as that company's foray into "next gen." But when you have consoles coming out with no real history behind them, what determines the beginning of a new generation? It seems like a lot of it happens in retrospect.
The CDi wasn't really intended to be a game console. They were hoping to integrate CDi / "green book" as another compact disc standard that would be integrated with various devices. They were hoping for a future in which anything with a CD drive could play CDi discs, just like how almost all of them can play audio CDs. They made all kinds of different CDi devices, including portable CD players, stereo system components, a TV with a CDi built-in, etc. The main consolesque CDi model that most people think of, was intended to be a "multimedia box". They made very little effort in the area of games. They also sold the things through infomercials and electronics stores, not game retailers. It's more akin to the Tandy VIS than anything. Basically like a computer without being a computer. When the Turbo Duo came out, it was advertised as the first self-contained CD-ROM game console, because CDi didn't count. If one has to categorize the CDi though, I do agree with putting it in the same generation as Genesis, since it's in roughly the same league. It has a 16-bit CPU, more powerful than the Genny's, but certainly more comparable to Genesis than Playstation.
The 3DO may have had some hype about its "multimedia" capabilities, but to roughly the same extent as systems like PS2. It was intended as a game console from the beginning, and 3DO made a big investment in game development. It was also touted by 3DO and others as a next generation console compared to Genesis and SNES. When Playstation and Saturn were being talked about prior to their release, 3DO was considered their competition, and would often be talked about in the same article. 3DO is a bit weaker than Playstation or Saturn, but it's still in the same league, and it has a 32-bit CPU with an FPU. Many 3DO games were ported to Playstation and Saturn, and they're more or less in line with other games for those systems, if a bit on the low end.
I don't see why any of that matters, though. Either the thing appears on a list of game consoles or it doesn't. Whether or not it was "kinda sorta" in that market should have no bearing on whether or not it ushered in a new generation so long as it's generally accepted as a console, which it is. Otherwise, why put it in any "generation" at all?
Numbering the generations just doesn't really say anything of value because it's relatively arbitrary when one starts and ends (again, since everyone is running a different race). It's pretty much just a matter of picking the earliest point at which somebody can say "this is enough of an upgrade" and pretty much doesn't end until the most successful console within that window finally bites the dust or a reasonable earlier approximation based on surrounding circumstances.
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 07-31-2012 at 02:50 PM.
Ok, so what's wrong with putting CDi in the same generation as Genesis and SNES? Other than having a very large color palette for the time, it's very much in line with other 16-bit systems.
Because the criteria for what makes something powerful enough to qualify as ushering in or just being part of a new generation is arbitrary as hell. Especially when you consider the fact that price points are all over the place and there isn't much agreement on what aspects of a machine matter the most (CPU? RAM? Format? Etc.) The LaserActive came out around the same time as the 3DO but its gaming abilities are very much rooted in Genesis/Turbo Duo, even with the Laserdisc games. Is it fifth gen? Does it even matter?
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 07-31-2012 at 03:01 PM.
The LaserActive was just a laserdisc player, it doesn't run its own code.
My only point was that the 5200 was Atari's next generation hardware, yet people on Wikipedia have lumped it into the same hardware generation as the 2600, which makes no sense.
Irrelevant. Right now I can click on the online rarity guide and under "systems" click "LaserActive" and see the entire library pop up.
It's absolutely silly. There's really no rational explanation for it other than people just not caring since the 2600 steamrolled through it.
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 08-01-2012 at 10:09 AM.
They don't run on the bare LaserActive. All "LaserActive games" are either Mega LD or LD-ROM2 and require one or the other module, which is what the games actually run on.
Again, so what? It's accepted as a console. How do the intricacies of the hardware relate to the issue at hand? What are you saying, that it doesn't belong on any list at all?
Your facts are right but that you even have to drop them at all is proving my point for me. That the "# generation" thing is silly and ultimately meaningless. They're given relatively arbitrary beginnings and ends, ala the 5200 example. It literally does not matter whether the LaserActive is forth or fifth gen because saying either one tells you nothing of value about the machine whatsoever. Console specs are all over the place during a generation.
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 08-01-2012 at 11:52 AM.
You asked "What's really the criteria here?" I said: "To me the criteria is the actual hardware, and to a lesser extent, the general intent when the system was released." You mention the LaserActive, and I explain how it's categorized based on the criteria I stated. How is there any question of whether the hardware is relevant, when that's what I said in the first place?
Proving your point for you? You asked a question. I assumed you were legitimately asking, not positing a question just to lure someone into some sort of rhetorical trap.Your facts are right but that you even have to drop them at all is proving my point for me.
Why did you ask "Is it fifth gen?" if you so strongly feel that "fifth gen" is a meaningless distinction? If that's your opinion, that's fine. But you could have just said from the beginning, "this is what I think, and I don't care what anyone else says."That the "# generation" thing is silly and ultimately meaningless. They're given relatively arbitrary beginnings and ends, ala the 5200 example. It literally does not matter whether the LaserActive is forth or fifth gen because saying either one tells you nothing of value about the machine whatsoever. Console specs are all over the place during a generation.
Since we're talking about the Atari 5200 generation here, the Angry Video Game Nerd would say "who gives a flying fuckernaut?" which also sounds like "who gives a flying fuck-or-not?" Well the answer to that is some people.
[quote name='Shidou Mariya' date='Nov 17 2010, 10:05 PM' post='4889940']
I'm a collector, but only to a certain extent.
Not as extreme as Rickstilwell though.[/quote]
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