I saw on G4 that Nintendo did a study group before they released the NES in New York to see if American kids would like it, and these kids they got all hated the games and didnt understand how to play.
Stores didnt want a video game console, which is why they made ROB to make it seem like it was a toy. They basically tricked them more or less they way they presented the NES early on.
Last edited by IHatedSega; 01-25-2013 at 12:59 AM.
Hmm, I'd like to see that info too (or hear it from the mouths of those now adults that did play testing). Hard to imagine these days, but it was a totally different time back then.
What if America was as laxed as other countries to the point where AO games were allowed to be sold in retail stores?
What if all the school shootings never happened(this is in relation to how it's affected the industry)?
What if the Video Game industry had lost the Supreme court hearing in 2011?
ALL HAIL THE 1 2 P
Originally Posted by THE 1 2 P
What if Nintendo would have released the AVS (the original NES) in January 1984 (first CES showing).
What if Atari would have distributed the Sega Genesis, as Sega wanted to originally.
But i guess the answer to my rob question was what i thought. If he never existed american gaming industry would not have evolved as much as it did.
Here is another What If.. What if enough time was given to developers to complete E.T and polish pacman. Would the gaming market crash have ever happened? Would atari still be making consoles?
The fact that 250 million people around the world own a Wii, Xbox 360, and/or PS3 indicate otherwise. (And the fact that 2.5 million people already own a Wii U in its first two months on the market.)
Yes, but Super Mario Bros. wasn't an arcade port like Mario Bros. was. And I was being silly.
Probably the only thing that would happen is that Atari would have had more money from more units sold and Ray Casar would have been in charge longer. They wouldnt have been sold or had computer systems. The arcade crash was gonna happen no matter what, these games didnt affect it. Other really crappy games though would still have piled up everywhere and businesses would have still gone out, but Atari's name wouldnt have been as damaged. Probably their fall would have started in the 5200 era, and the 7200 would have been sold in more places but people would passed it up to get an NES. There probably would have been more 7800 versions of games though.
I guess you're right, and current generation sales figures must be the ONLY indicator of future market viabilty and trends. I haven't heard a single person complain about the inherent problems with DLC, the online games that require servers which could be shut down at a moment's notice with no hope of establishing a user-created server in their stead, or the possibility of physical copies of software that are married to their consoles in the coming generations, quite possibly killing the used market and possibly the entire market.
Are you bickering with be for bickering's sake, or are you just seriously not willing to think ever-so-slightly outside the box and consider a fickle market who's tastes/wants/needs are ever changing? Who would have guessed 10 years ago that casual gaming would be so huge? Who would have thought 15 years ago that western game market would grow to its current state? Maybe open source gaming is the next bit thing. Is that such an absurd thing to imagine?
I'm starting to think your day job is super conservative business analyst. You're seem quite well informed and intelligent, but not at all willing to consider that there may truth beyond a sales figure or current financial status of a given corporation. Companies don't make a turnaround by doing what hasn't worked (I.e. Sega making mediocre games ad nauseum), but rather by taking a risk on a new idea.
You contradict yourself. If "casual" gaming is so huge right now, why would companies continue catering to the "hardcore"?
"Casual" gamers don't care about DLC, user-created servers, physical copies, etc. They play Carnival Games on the Wii and download digital games on their iOS devices.
And before you lament the death of "hardcore" gaming, think about this: "casual" gamers pay $50 for the latest copy of Madden NFL, day one, whereas "hardcore" gamers are cheap bastards who wait six months for Halo 4 to hit the $10 bargain bin before they buy it. So, why would companies continue to cater to the "hardcore" users, when they're the ones who demand physical copies and servers to be online forever, but rarely want to pay full price for things? Maybe companies are finally wising up to cheap geeks with entitlement issues.
Again, you're stuck in a very, VERY singularly-mided line if logic.
There's no contradiction. The so-called "hardcore" AND casual markets exist side-by-side. I didn't point out the viability to casual gaming in order to say it has taken over the market and left no room for the serious gamer. Nor did I say that Eastern games are now completely irrelevant. Quite the opposite actually. Casual gaming has just grown the market.
That's like insisting that there's no market for pickup trucks because minivans are selling well. There's quite obviously a market for both.
Halo. I would just as easily lump Halo in with Madden based on its "for the masses" appeal. That, and to use your own logic, its sale figures don't lead me to believe that the majority of serious/hardcore gamers are waiting for it to hit a bargain bin. You're just pulling that one out of your butt, to be honest.
Last edited by wiggyx; 01-25-2013 at 09:59 AM.
The Ouya is going to be a flop. As John Romero said it doesn't do enough to prevent piracy. Sega would be fools to follow that. Publishers like the current model because its all big corps too. Small developers still need tons of money to make anything bigger than a minigame and ouya does not offer the financial model to recoop investment.
I'm an adult and I can't understand how to use R.O.B. kids hated that thing.
The Paunch Stevenson Show free Internet podcast - www.paunchstevenson.com - DP FEEDBACK
It doesn't do ANYTHING to prevent piracy, and that's sort of the point.
That was your original claim. My response was that hundreds of millions of people disagree with you. The amount of people "getting tired" are severely outnumbered, which is why game companies cater to them less and less as time goes on.
I'm not necessarily saying I want the industry to move in that direction, but companies go where the money is and recent history has shown that the "hardcore" market is full of cheap people and pirates.
I don't see too many Angry Birds/Cut the Rope/Doodle Jump/Plants vs. Zombies/Carnival Games/Just Dance 2 fans torrenting ROMs and then modding their consoles to play them. The "casual" market is where the money is.
Great business model.
R.O.B. wasn't aimed at children. It was Nintendo's Trojan horse to get the NES on store shelves. Retailers didn't want to carry any more video games at that time. "Ah, but this isn't a video game, it's an entertainment system. See, it even comes with an interactive robot!" Nintendo knew R.O.B. was pointless and therefore only developed two games for it.
Last edited by Rob2600; 01-25-2013 at 10:23 AM.
The Paunch Stevenson Show free Internet podcast - www.paunchstevenson.com - DP FEEDBACK
And my response was that you can't always count on past business models to predict how the market will shift in the future. Game companies will cater to themselves as they get bigger and bigger, not ANY user-base, regardless of casual or serious.
As if that notion is the all-encompassing model. Man, you really walk around with horse blinders on...
In any number of ways.
But the video game industry is way bigger now than it has ever been in the past and we're seeing a trend. The industry has shifted to please the "casual" Wii Sports/Carnival Games/Angry Birds market and is less concerned with the "hardcore" we-want-your-servers-to-stay-online-forever market. I'm not saying companies are now totally ignoring the "hardcore" market, but it's definitely less important these days.
You seem to think "hardcore" gamers are still the main spenders, but they aren't. Look at how many "hardcore" gamers on this forum complained about the Wii being "casual" for the last 6+ years and swore it'd be a flop...yet the Wii went on to be the biggest money maker this generation *and* spawned copycat controllers from Microsoft and Sony. Like it or not, the "hardcore" market is dwindling, thanks in part to how cheap "hardcore" gamers are. Companies go where the money is.
If you think "hardcore" gamers will all of a sudden rise up and shift the mainstream market back in their favor, you're the one with blinders on. If "hardcore" gamers were the industry's driving force, Super Mario would sell 50,000 copies and Ninja Gaiden would sell 20 million. Instead, Kinect Adventures is the Xbox 360's best selling title.
That doesn't mean a Kickstarted-funded, "hardcore" oriented console can't become a mild niche success.
Last edited by Rob2600; 01-25-2013 at 10:52 AM.