Flashback NES

Gamespot has a piece in their Flashback series up, looking at the significance of the NES, Nintendo's original console offering in the United States. Last year the console celebrated its 20th year. Gamespot has a talk with Nintendo and reflects on the games that made the system great. From the article: "There was no denying that the NES was a phenomenon. By the 1990's one in every three American homes had an NES and video games had become a billion-dollar industry. Nintendo had taken over Saturday morning cartoons, cereal boxes, and the surface of commercial merchandise the world over. Through several different iterations, from the Japanese-exclusive Famicom Disk System to the 90's released top-loading NES, the NES dominated video game sales for nearly a decade."

I hope the Revolution is successful

[Overly Critical Guy]

I hope Nintendo's Revolution system is successful in their goals of providing a universally accessible, cheap gaming machine, the way the NES was 21 years ago. Each year, gaming has become more and more targeted toward the "hardcore" gamers, so that you need more buttons, longer FMVs, more licensed rap songs, and much more expensive consoles. All that so you can ooh and awe over seeing glistening sweat shaders on the polygons of a basketball player. It's pretty sad.

I remember my dad playing Super Mario Bros. with me. Rad Racer and a few others, too. There's no way he'd pick up Halo or Final Fantasy today. Not only do these games require an extended commitment (which means only hardcore gamers with lives can truly enjoy them instead of the pick-up-and-play nature of older games), they've abandoned their simplicity and uniqueness in exchange for more shaders and polys.

Immersion is supposed to draw you in, yes; but when you're immersed, the game should be fun to play. A good example is Legend of Zelda, which still remains reasonably simple to play, though Windwaker did add some complexities. But perhaps the greatest example of a "modern" game that was as simple as the old games yet had the depth people demand today is Super Mario 64. Controlling that game is such a piece of cake, and I think Nintendo wants all their games to be that easy to control through their new controller (which an EA rep leaked will have touch sensitivity as well!).

NES for the 21st Century

[DoninIN]

That's what the gaming world needs. What made the NES such a hit? To me it was the wide variety of games, the availability of sports games (Double Dribble was awesome) and the actually interesting gameplay. The secret to Nintendo's success over the years was that even though their games were often too "cutesy" for the "hardcore" gamer the gameplay was fun, immediately accessable and intuitive. The new controller might be the ticket, but I also think they need a way to attract the puzzle gaming crowd to the new system and they'd have another round of amazing success. (Disclaimer, I hate puzzle games, I only have the patience for FPS games and RTS if it doesn't take too long to grasp and build, do all my "grinding" in real life)

Are we remembering the same 1986?

[AllenChristopher]

In the 1986 I remember, PCs had more memory than consoles but pathetic video hardware with no accelerated blitting or pageflipping, making them unsuitable for any gaming that didn't involve a mostly static screen or vector graphics. Sure, the Amiga and the IIgs could do more, but a PC? Never.

At that time, hardware specifically designed for *gaming* allowed a number of gametypes that simply could not be done on the PC. When the original Commander Keen came out, in 1990, people were stunned that you could do a Mario-type full screen scroller on the PC.

Even the hardware details you're quoting are iffy. IBM PCs certainly didn't have 32 bit processors in 1986.

"1986: September - IBM announces the IBM PC-XT Model 286, with 640KB RAM, 1.2MB floppy drive, 20MB hard drive, serial/parallel ports, and keyboard for US$4000."

Action gaming on a 286 compared to an NES? No contest. NES wins. Particularly with that $4000 price tag on the 286. Yes, there were deeper and more complex games on the PC, but mostly because of the keyboard and mouse. Just like today. Not so much the mouse on the 286, but it was starting to pick up.

The balance shifted around Doom... The general purpose nature of PCs meant they could handle 3-D decently, where the SNES and Genesis hadn't been designed for this kind of thing and their lack of pure horsepower held them back. By Quake, PCs started to have hardware acceleration for gaming, and so the consoles couldn't pull that trick any more.

Don't get me wrong, I liked PC gaming back then a lot, but I also programmed games starting around 1994. Even with hand-coded ASM I could see I was never going to keep up with an SNES in 2-D, which was a three-year old system. Compare Jill of the Jungle or the later Keens, which ran on 1991 PCs, to Earthworm Jim. The disparity is ridiculous, even with the legendary Carmack writing the engine on Keen.

Re:I never understood gaming...

[noidentity]

"I am old enough to remember the NES, Genesis, and SNES, but I even as a child I never understood the desire to sit in front of a television playing a video game or watching a show."

It wasn't a desire to sit in front of a TV, it was a desire to explore other worlds and find hidden things, be challenged with puzzles and challenging maneuvers, improve skill through practice, and (sometimes) play against friends in multiplayer games. It would be hard to desire this if you'd never experienced it, so perhaps it was just a matter of who was exposed to video games enough to get a glimpse of what it was.

That said, now I spend most of my time working on Nintendo emulation, rather than playing video games.

Re:Are we remembering the same 1986?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with everything you say *if* you think PC == x86 DOS box. Those sucked for gaming in '86, true enough.

OTOH, to me PC == personal computer, so I count Amigas in that category. They had 68000s, which were a hybrid 16/32 bit architecture (later pure 32 bit with the 68020). They had excellent hardware for video games (hardware accelerated blits, the ability to change palettes in mid frame), digital sound, most had 512 Mb with some at 1 or even 2 Mb, and could even run 3D games (although very primitive ones by today's standards - no texture mapping).

The NES was quite primitive compared to the Amiga, so Amiga (and Atari) games were just much more sophisticated. The x86 machines were primitive also, but as you say, they surpassed everything else around the time of Doom, in the early texture-mapped 3D days.

Nightmare and Crime Simulations?

[6e7a]

Is it just me, or is Nintendo the only company that doesn't cater only to mature audiences? Does Gen Y (or Z or whatever) really demand such over-the-top nightmarish games? Am I so old that only us NES veterans enjoy games that even my young kids can play?

I went to the toy store to buy my son a birthday present. While I was there, I walked down the aisle, taking note of the rough percentage of games for each platform were rated anything below teen or mature. I noticed that only Nintendo had any games I'd want my kids to play.

I don't mind a little violence, but why does every game have to simulate a nightmare or a crime to be worth playing? I just don't understand. I'd appreciate it if someone explained it to me.

Re:Nightmare and Crime Simulations?

[Siffy]

Because it's easier on the programmers to just go over the top of what the last person did to get the latest and greatest "shock value" out of the buyer instead of actually being creative and innovative. But yeah, unfortunately it seems you get the choices of violent content, sexual content or kiddie content with hardly any middle ground. It may lead to off-topicness, but some of the hardcore gamers on here might have suggestions for you if you have an age range. I found more expensive (more money wasteful) hobbies than video games years ago... first Jeeps, then saltwater aquariums.