The Battle Of The Consoles: From Atari To The Xbox 311
msolnik writes: "There's been a lot of talk about Xbox, and GameCube, and even more speculation about the technology inside the box. However, the console wars are not going to be won based purely on technology. There's a long history of cyclical win and lose peaks and troughs for companies that have tried to stay the course in this business. Nintendo stands alone in having survived a number of generations of innovation and still managed to remain a contender in the market. Tom's Hardware has delivered this unique assessment of The Console Wars." Update: 12/06 16:28 GMT by M : Note that Tom's has updated some of the charts in the article - they note that there was a misunderstanding between Tom's and the article's author as to which version of the charts to post.
losing on technology (Score:5, Interesting)
They might be lost though. If it turns out to be really easy to modify an X-Box enough to run Linux and play your MP3's, DIV-X movies, do email, etc, then people might buy an X-Box and never spend a penny on an X-Box game.
Since Microsoft, as with most console companies, are selling the console at a loss, and making up for it with game sales, this can't be a good thing for them. Their choice of almost-standard components might cost them in the long run.
Re:losing on technology (Score:4, Insightful)
In that case, taking the loss on the console won't hurt Microsoft in the long run, as it will increase their dominance in the gaming market.
Re:losing on technology (Score:2, Insightful)
But it is not.
If everyone starts buying Xboxes, the cost will go down. The cost of something is made of fixed costs and variable costs (dunno the english naming scheme for them).
Microsoft will expect to lose money on a certain number of sold machines. Any machine morethen that will make profit.
It does make a difference if you make and sell 1 million machines or 2 million machines. The fixed costs only come once, only the variable costs count for each machine.
And Microsoft Bob Doesn't Count (Score:2, Insightful)
Now that's rich. I challenge you to name any Microsoft product where the price has dropped with mass production.
The cost of PC's has fallen to become an unbelievable value. The cost of the Microsoft software kindly preloaded on those PC's? Just the opposite.
Some "innovation," Bill. Sheesh...
Re:And Microsoft Bob Doesn't Count (Score:2)
Cost means the cost for Microsoft to build such a thing.
Price means the price you pay to get one.
Anything inbetween is what Microsoft loses or wins.
Re:And Microsoft Bob Doesn't Count (Score:2, Funny)
I guess my old economics textbook could be used for better things than propping up my monitor...
Re:And Microsoft Bob Doesn't Count (Score:2, Insightful)
Can you apply that to software? Maybe.. if by manufacturing advances you can say that Visual Studio makes Microsoft's software engineers more effective at writing code. But we all know that's not true, at least on the scale that would be required to reduce a team of programmers by a factor of 2 (or more) each year to justify decreasing the price at the same rate as hardware decreases. Sure MS could say that because they're going to sell 100 million copies of XP they will adjust the price accordingly, but they are like any publisher - book, music, movie. They set a price where they will turn a profit after some X number of copies are sold.
It's a business, they have to pay thousands of real people to write code. And they continue to pay them even after the product it released, so the revenue from the software sales pays their salaries. Yes, they are huge and could probably afford to charge less. But why should they? It's a business and the market will currently bear the price they set. In 5 years, who knows, maybe it won't. Maybe Open Source will have a strong enough foothold that people won't tolerate these prices.
BTW - the cost of software preloaded on PC's from major manufacturers is pennies on the dollar compared to what you pay retail. It's the same for corporations who pay for volume licensing. Probably much closer to what it actually costs to produce the software.
Re:And Microsoft Bob Doesn't Count (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft Sidewinder Joysticks. You're thinking of software, where the price rarely drops, unlike hardware, where it often (eventually) does, especially as they have stiff competition in that area.
Re:losing on technology (Score:5, Funny)
You are assuming that the "losses" Microsoft are making is due to capital investment, and it makes an operating income on each unit. But it is widely believed that each unit actually costs more to manufacture than it is sold for, meaning that every sale will result in a loss, on top of capital investment. Under this model, the cost is recouped from the games. The percentage of the profit made on total games sales that Microsoft receives must cover the loss on the consoles, and the capex plus interest, and anything left on top of that is the only profit MS will see.
So the question is, what is the average number of games/merchandise that must be sold per console in order to make a profit?
Re:losing on technology (Score:2)
And simply put, if you're right, then I'm wrong.
But saying widely assumed also means noone knows for sure, and noone has looked in Microsofts financial kitchen.
Re:losing on technology (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:losing on technology (Score:2, Informative)
Look mate - in your peer group, and on this website, maybe there is a relatatively high percentage minority of people who are going to do this - but in the real world, normal everyday people do not do this. Wake up!!
As an example - how much money do you think MS 'lose' on computers sold on which people solely install linux? It's really not that great a percentage of total pc's...
Re:losing on technology (Score:2)
Re:losing on technology (Score:2)
That's what happened in Japan with PS2 (Score:2)
Re:losing on technology (Score:2)
This leads to a public perception that this is the console that's going to succeed (they don't know why they're being bought), which in turn has the habit of making it the console that will succeed.
Public perception counts for a lot.
Re:losing on technology (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:losing on technology (Score:4, Insightful)
However easy it is, it still sounds like a geek thing. Most people who would even consider doing a thing like that would already have a perfectly functional PC.
Saying that, using standard technology may get them into trouble in other ways. IANAEE (electronics engineer) but I bet that over millions of units, the custom hardware which most consoles use costs less. As the production ramps up, jamming loads onto a few custom made chips starts to pay.
If they think they can win the console wars the same way they one the browser wars (and let's face it, IE costs something to produce and distribute) then they would've had to come in a lot lower than $300. I'm assuming that their plan is to ultimately have the "all MS" household but they forget that:
browsers are cheap to make in bulk
people don't spend $100s on games for their browser
Unless they get the games that people want to play, they will come unstuck.
This insightful analysis has been brought to you by a Sega Saturn owner.
Re:losing on technology (Score:2)
And the craftiest loophole is that they get to deduct the loss, and then make money on games and licensing for the system. They lose money, but make it up when filing taxes.
Wheres the SNES??? (Score:3, Interesting)
On this page [tomshardware.com], there is a chart that shows "Console History", with the relative successes by companies shown in bold. Not only is th SNES not boled, It's not even there. I find this very unsual, since growing up, everyone I knew had an SNES, period. You were considered "way out of it" if you were stuck with one of those crappy Genesis things.
Re:Wheres the SNES??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe it was a regional thing? When I was growing up only a few people I knew had a SNES, but everyone had a Genesis. I think mostly because certain games, Madden Football, MK3, really sucked on the SNES. Although the kid who had the SNES was quite popular once he got Mario Kart...
Re:Wheres the SNES??? (Score:2)
I dunno. I always found most Genesis games to be lacking when compared to SNES games. The SNES was still blasting the Genesis off the shelves around here, even after they tried their 32x and Sega-CD charades.
Re:Wheres the SNES??? (Score:2)
Re:Wheres the SNES??? (Score:3, Informative)
I gave up on the article before the middle - Doom creating the market for "add-in sound and graphics cards" was the final straw. If only there were some people over the age of 16 with half a brain writing for these hardware sites .....
Re:Wheres the SNES??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly!
This article has a huge black hole between the Atari 2600 in the early 80s and Doom on PC in 1993. To me, the first impressive PC game was Castle Wolfenstein. But before that, the entire second half of the 80s was dominated by Atari STs and Amigas as game machines. PCs and Macs during this period were "business" machines which didn't pander to the games market. For those of you not old enough to remember, the PC as dominant games platform is a relatively recent phenomenon.
What About Sierra!?! (Score:2)
Of course, you're very right about PC's not being dominant. The fact that the NES had the lion's share of great games for either PC or Console of that era is very telling.
Re:Wheres the SNES??? (Score:2, Informative)
I absolutely had to hear those little tunes and sound effects on something better than a PC speaker.
I can't see how Doom could have increased demand for add-in graphics cards, though. It used no 3D acceleration and any computer bought anywhere near the time it came out had a VGA card more than capable of handling the game's 2D-3D graphics anyway.
Doom 2 kicked my little 486dx33's ass, and even then the thing I upgraded was the CPU and not the video card.
Re:Bad Research on the whole Article (Score:2, Insightful)
And why did the writer skip from Infocomm straight to Doom. There were a lot of genres that grew up between text adventures and FPSes. What happened to the side-scrolling platform jumpers like Sonic and Super Mario Brothers? What about all of the RPGs published by Square? Sports games grew by leaps and bounds during that time.
I generally like the articles on Tom's Hardware, but this one seemed like it was thrown together by a team of rabid monkeys (or some other randomly-generated /. page creator) in a matter of minutes. I know that failure to check your sources is nothing new to most slashdotters, but I hope it doesn't become the norm for other sites like Tom's.
</RANT>
It's worse (Score:2)
Re:Wheres the SNES??? (Score:3, Funny)
Can you guess [tagor.com] which one was on top?
Did the same thing with a Saturn [tagor.com], too.
Guaranteed performance (Re:Ho ho.) (Score:2)
This seems to sit well with something I remember reading.
I seem to recall an interview where some Nintendo rep (who knows, maybe it was even Miyamoto-sensei or Yamauchi-san) states that 6-12 million polys per second is the Gamecube's guaranteed performance, with high-res textures and all features in use, at a high framerate. When asked if those were the high-end limits of the hardware, I believe the interviewee resisted comment and only repeated that 6-12m were guaranteed with all features turned on.
If I'm not hallucinating, this would clearly be a case of Nintendo not adhering to the old line of "lies, damn lies, and specifications," however I can't find the article doing a google search for ``gamecube "12 million" guarantee,'' so can someone help locate this?
< tofuhead >
Re:Wheres the SNES??? (Score:2)
I agree. See for this example of the latest article [tomshardware.com] at thg (soon on
An other example of the incompleteness of the article about game computer is missing that doom [hollywoodvideo.com] was just released on the gameboy advance. That is how the state of those small gaming devices is right now!
Re:Wheres the SNES??? (Score:2, Funny)
rpm -qa | grep tar
What the fuck is what I say, because if you have rpm, yet you DON'T HAVE TAR, then something is seriously wrong with you.
That was then, this is now (Score:3, Funny)
(Even better, show the original Wolfenstein game, 2D with stick figures. Wasn't that kind of a 'Berserk' ripoff? Coward. Fight like a robot.)
Some Constant Rules though (Score:5, Interesting)
A combination of two or more of these usually makes up for a lack in the others. Likewise, failure in multiple categories often doom a system. Nintendo dominated with the SNES, which had an incredible set of developers. But they took a long time developing a replacement, and when they did the N64 was both hard to develop for, couldn't run old games, and didn't have the ability to easily hold as much as the PS1(FMV on a cartridge?). It had plenty of power over the PS1, but not much else.
Likewise, the current PS2 isn't as easy to develop for, or as powerful as the Xbox and Gamecube. But it is easy enough, and since it can run all the PS1 games and came out first it has a huge market penetration jump start. If a company can only afford to initially develop for one platform, they will probably do it on the system that has the most market share. Likewise, many consumers will buy the system with the most games, building an upward momentum for the system. Neither Nintendo(with experience) or Microsoft(with $$$) are small contenders who can be counted out, which is good as it will make sure none of the companies sit on their laurels. Hopefully, we will get to seem some really great development in the years ahead.
Re:Some Constant Rules though (Score:2)
Re:Some Constant Rules though (Score:2)
If X-Box wants to live they need to take on Playstation which while not so powerful has a lot of really good games and programmers experienced in writing those good games. They could try to convert all those programmers to writing X-Box games and eventually they'd get good games coming in but they'd never catch up. I can see Microsoft buying off the dead Bleem and using that technology to make PSX games playable on the X-Box. They have the money to fight Sony endlessly in court over the legality of the move and in the mean time they'd suddenly be making thousands of games people already own playable on their own box.. possibly better than they play on the PS2. Of course little profit is made from making those games playable but if they can convert those gamers over and feed them their new games then they might just be able to severly dent the Playstation market. If they could make the X-Box also play PS2 games and match the price of the PS2 they might even be able to kill off the Playstation. With Microsoft's history of dirty tricks I can see them making such a move.
Re:Some Constant Rules though (Score:3, Informative)
> compatibility as a selling feature; the PS2 is
> anomaly.
Wrong! You can start back in the Atari days and see this sort of thing. The Colecovision, Intellivision, *and* the Atari 5200 had "expansion modules" allowing you to play Atari 2600 games on each console. Mind you, these were Atari 2600s in little cases that just used the video outputs of the consoles, but this *was* a selling point.
Fast forward to the Atari 7800 - which was truly backwards-compatible with the 2600. No "expansion modules" required. In fact, 2600 and 7800 carts plugged into the same slot! (In case you say my other examples were iffy, this one is functionally equivalent to what the PS2 does)
The TurboDuo could play TG-16 Hucard games as well. (Yes, a Duo is basically an expanded TG-16, but you could buy a duo in one piece.)
Note that not all of these consoles were terribly successful, but that's another story altogether.
Re:Some Constant Rules though (Score:2)
The PS2 is the first POPULAR console that has backwards compatability though.
Also, the Game Boy advance plays all game boy games, from the original (released in the 80's) all the way to the GB Color.
Re:Some Constant Rules though (Score:2)
Re:Some Constant Rules though (Score:2)
Right about the SGB and customized color.
IIRC, Nintendo Power magazine even used to feature recommended color palettes for playing monochrome GB games on SGB in every GB game review.
The GBA allows you to choose between a handful of pre-determined color palettes for monochrome games.
< tofuhead >
Drawback to backwards compatibility... (Score:2)
However, when the 7800 came out, able to play 2600 games, we (my friends, young at the time) assumed that it meant that it was a glorified 2600. Recently, a friedn bought a 5200 and some games off E-bay for nostalgia, and referred to it has the "best Atari system ever" reminding me of our thoughts.
I have mixed feelings on backwards compatibility. At the time, I was appalled that Nintendo didn't let me play me 30 NES games on the SNES. However, I still had a working NES, so it wasn't THAT big a deal. However, when I got my SNES at launch and it lacked games, it really turned me off to the system... I ended up playing my Genesis more as a result.
However, with the NES and SNES on the same TV, I don't know why I cared that I needed separate systems.
However, the Sega Master System, while "better" hardware (specwise) felt flimsy, and seemed to have problems moving. Ours died when we moved it from TV-to-TV once. The Power Converter/Genesis seemed like a more useful purchase at the time then a new SMS.
sketchy at best (Score:4, Insightful)
Aside from a few sales numbers, I see no mention of Atari. This is more of a Console vs PC's article --- and new consoles at that.
Oh yeah, I don't think the PSX was 64 bits.
-B
Re:sketchy at best (Score:2, Informative)
- R3000A 32bit RISC chip @ 33.8mhz - Manufactured by LSI Logic Corp.
- Clearing capacity: 30 MIPS
- Bus bandwidth: 132 Mb/sec
personally i thought the article was badly put together. like other people have mentioned, skimming over some very important landmarks (hello, where was the zx spectrum and manic miner).Re:sketchy at best (Score:2)
The number of factual errors and omissions in this article was quite incredible, although some bizarre little factoids made the cut - "Cornerstone" from Infocom (*NOT* "Infocomm") was mentioned for instance. And then there was the weird speculation of how much ATI and Nvidia would earn on their chipsets. The list goes on and on...
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
PS. And when Benjamin Franklin said "Games lubricate the body and the mind", I don't think he was talking about Quake, do you?
Re:sketchy at best (Score:3, Informative)
Saying it was a 32bit+32bit system is a bit disingenuous, although I remember it's what people used to say at the time. 8)
Also, I seem to remember reading somewhere that there was a 16 bit controller chip somewhere in the mix, so by your logic they should have called it an 80 bit system!
Battle for the console? Nope! (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft is looking for control over the television. They think they've taken the first step, selling a box that people hook up to their TV. Too bad it's $300, but that's the microsoft way - you might as well charge the customer if they're willing to pay.
Nintendo is looking for control of the gaming market. Control of the television is not an aspiration - yet.
A "Unique Assessment"? Try "Not Worth Reading." (Score:5, Insightful)
The authors open their article with a neat little chart listing "the dates of the introductions of various consoles.
Their wonderfully-short second section, "Console History," spans in painstaking detail the gaming industry's progress during the crucial period between the heyday of MIT's Rail Road Club and the formation of software giant Infocomm in 1979. From there, they proceed directly to the next logical video gaming landmark -- with a third section, accurately titled, "Then Came Doom."
The article's most valuable offerings are a 21-item chart comparing a whopping three consoles (Xbox, PS2 and GCN), including such poignant criteria as "DVD Movie Playback" and "Broadband Enabled"; and a whole five sentences comparing these three systems, proving conclusively that somewhere during the authors' extensive research for this article, one of them did in fact quickly scan MSNBC's "Game Time" article -- which, it's worth adding, is a vastly more useful and intelligent article (with regard to the current "Top 3"), and can be found at the following URL:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/techgames_front.asp
crib
Amen - That article was terrible (Score:2)
Re:A "Unique Assessment"? Try "Not Worth Reading." (Score:3, Insightful)
I just couldn't believe that the TurboGraphx 16 was bolded and the SNES wasn't even there. The SNES was an excellent system in its day. I mean just look at Street Fighter 2 - it was nearly identical to the arcade version. This was a game that was so popular that companies were manufacturing arcade quality controllers so you could play SF2 at home and do dragon punches without destroying your thumbs. There was no console on the market at that point able to compete with it. Sure the Genesis had technically better hardware, and the Neo Geo was fantastic (but who could afford it?). But it all comes back to the games, right? And the SNES simply had better games, for the money, than anything else out there.
Re:A "Unique Assessment"? Try "Not Worth Reading." (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll never forget the SEGA commercial that was talking about Genesis and it's "Blast Processing". They showed Sonic and compared it to Mario Kart in an ill-advised move that was intended to illustrate the disparity in processing speeds. Unfortunately, I saw this commercial as a freshman in High School and was STILL playing Mario Kart for hours in my college dorm while Sonic's *third* incarnation was collecting dust on the back shelf.
Re:A "Unique Assessment"? Try "Not Worth Reading." (Score:2, Interesting)
Evidence of this was quite clear when playing SegaCD games. One That comes to mind is "SewerShark", a gimicky FMV game. Unfortunately it looked like shit because of the dark scenes, narrow palette, and horrendous dithering. You may as well have played the game through a screen door. It would have at least explained the unwanted grid pattern over top of everything.
Conversely, while not a FMV game, "StarFox" for the SNES has some instances where it shows off the colour capability of the SNES. I refer to those scenes with the psychedelic backgrounds like the black hole level, or the final boss level. While not perfect, they are smoothly rendered, on-the-fly gradients made up of at least 32 colours. Gradients were never seen on the Genesis for one simple reason; they couldn't afford to waste the palette space.
All that being said, the Genesis DID have the faster processor, which could handle more moving things on the screen at once. Anyone who played some of the more bleeding edge SNES games is familiar with the infamous SNES slow-down feature. "It's like it KNOWS when you need slow-motion!" Though, I've seen the Genesis have trouble at times too.
As it relates to sound, it's gotta go to the SNES again, though SegaCD sounded great. And it should have, it was CD FFS (For Fuck's Sake). But the base Genesis sound unit was ass, I hate to say it.
I guess the best way to compare the systems is apples to apples. Street Fighter II Turbo (First SFII available for the Genesis methinks.) This title makes an excellent example of my points, especially the sound.
The colours on the Genesis look more saturated, but only because they couldn't afford the luxury of things like putting the depth of shadows that they did into the arcade or SNES versions. For an even more simple comparison, compare the backgrounds of the levels, it's clear that palette reduction techniques were used by the designers of the Genesis game, because they HAD to. The SNES version remains more closely true to the original.
The sound on the SNES was respectable. The music again remained pretty true, as did the sampled voices. Each, "HADOKEN!" and whatnot ringing true. The Genesis handled the music quite alright, but the sampled voices sounded like the characters had been gagged with their socks. The general effect wash muffled and mushy, "SHADOFEN!"
So, I concede the Genesis had the better number-crunching ability, but the SNES had the better graphics and sound units.
Feel free to argue me all that you want, just know that you're wrong. =)
Technology doesn't matter...Dreamcast anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Sega Dreamcast was WAY ahead of its time when it came to graphics. Soul Calibur is one example of a game with outstanding graphics that kick the crap out of anything on the PSone (which was the competition at the time). Personally, I think it competes more directly with the PS2, but that's another topic altogether. The point is that it didn't have the backing of the game developers like the PS did, so in the end, it lost out. Not because it was an inferior system (it wasn't), but because the marketing push and support wasn't there.
Of Gameboyrs and TurboExpress (Score:5, Insightful)
But as far as the Game Boy is concerned... Let's face it, Nintendo played its cards right. When the GB first came out it actually wasn't that expensive. It boasted the power of the NES (which was the only Nintendo console available) and a simple grayscale LCD screen. And it was cheap. When I got my GB, I bought it myself with money I had saved up (I was maybe 11 at the time), and it was maybe $150 CDN for me to buy. Plus I was able to afford a game or two.
Now, along comes Sega's Game Gear a few years later. Think Portable Genesis. That's all well and good, but the colour screen drove up the price enough to make it more inaccessible to some. And from what I understand from a couple of people who had them, they weren't that great for battery life.
Among the Nintendo users, people were always posing the question of when Nintendo would release a colour version of the GB, and the reply was when Nintendo could guarantee a similar price and similar battery life - two of the important factors for a good handheld console.
The Game Gear folded, maybe because it was too expensive. The TurboExpress was definitely a technical achievement for the time, but the price was definitely a little much, and out of the price range of its target audience.
Yes, Nintendo's taken its sweet time to producing a 16-bit colour handheld, but one thing I respect them for is their methodology. With the GB line, they tend to wait until they can guarantee that any new products meet price and performance requirements set by their original device... And it's been worth the wait.
Re:Of Gameboyrs and TurboExpress (Score:2)
A much closer fit to the "Portable Genesis" was the Sega Nomad, which actually was a portable Genesis, literally. It was slightly bigger than the GG, had the whole 7-button Genesis set up (from later on, of course, the original Genesis controllers only had three action buttons and a start button), and a huge cartridge slot on the top for Genesis carts.
I've only played the system a few times, as my brother has one, and it was quite good. "Revenge of Shinobi" looked great on the system.
As for the Game Gear, here's an interesting and even more inaccessible version of the system -- many years ago, I read a few quick blurbs in a Die Hard GameFan magazine (or maybe it was EGM, I'm forgetting) about two super special, non-sense versions of the Game Gear. One had an outer shell made of gold (or at least covered in gold), while another version had tons of diamonds hammered into a white shell. There were only a few of these Game Gears ever made, and they were priced at ridiculous amounts. (Even more than the "special" white Game Gears sold in Japan.)
There are pictures of the systems out there, but I haven't been able to find any on the 'Net. If I can find those copies of GameFan/EGM I'll scan 'em, they're interesting tidbits of Sega history.
J
Portable Genesis... Nomad (Score:2)
Superficial and Lacking (Score:5, Informative)
First, he makes the common mistake of giving the polygon/sec counts. MS and Sony have theoretical maximum counts while Nintendo's count is real-world with all of the eye candy turned on. He then uses this comparison to show the inferiority of the Cube hardware when the framerate of Cube games could be higher given the same games with complex action.
Look at the columns of features. See "N/A" next to most of the Cube's fetures? It makes it look like there's nothing there, yet the Cube has good marks in most of these rows, such as audio, HDTV, broadband and 56K modem.
Been there (Score:4, Insightful)
Atari 2600 was the first game console I bought. Thoughout the game history I think it was the games themselves leading the trend, rather than the game consoles.
We choose a game console by the games which they could run, rather by the innovative technologies it had. I wouldn't buy PS if it couldn't run Final Fantasy, etc.(like I wouldn't consider switching from Apple II to IBM if IBM couldn't run Ultima. ^_^)
I wondered why so many good games would only run on one particular game console, until I got to meet a game developer who told me that gaming industry is in fact, in contrary to what I thought, running a very serious business out there.
Production of a game nowaday involved a lot of money. Unless a game developer signed a very restrictive license agreement with the game console vendor, you wouldn't be granted the right to develop game for their console, and VC wouldn't give you money for your development.
The gaming business in game console is very different from gaming business in PC. Everybody can write games for PC, but only under close-partnership would one be allowed to develop game in a particular game console.
That explain why one game would appear in one game console seldom(not never) appear in another.
"...unique assessment of The Console Wars." (Score:4, Funny)
Not the best article... (Score:2, Insightful)
And the hardware is somewhat irrelevant at this point I think- it's all about the games that are available! Playstation2 is the clear winner this year- though it did have a head start. X-Box though just has so much power and potential- it'll be interesting to see what comes out this time next year for it. Nintendo- well Nintendo is Nintendo and they just go and do their thing and sell millions of units almost apart from what everyone else is doing- as long as they keep their strong branding to kids they will happily suck up the cash.
History lesson (Score:2, Funny)
what about gameboy (Score:2, Informative)
Genesis not a success? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Genesis not a success? (Score:2)
Infocom did not become doom. (Score:5, Insightful)
Text adventures are still alive and well, and still to this day feature better graphics than any console. (Even if you have a 1600x1200 monitory, text adventures feature more detail, you can zoom in infinantly on any area if your imangination is good enough)
Text adventures have always been puzzles and NPC interactoin. Sure there is a strong movement away from pure puzzles in the text adventure world, but they are still there. Doom is about finding the blue key, while Zork is getting the theif to do what you can't do yourself.
Re: (Score:2)
Tom's Hardware Guide to World History (Score:5, Funny)
And thus, with some battle lost, Rome fell, leaving only monuments and lead piping behind
NEXT>>>> The American Civil War
Really bad chart (Score:2, Redundant)
It was so full of errors as to be amazing. No mention of the supernintendo, marking the Turbo Graphix 16 as a 'success' and marking the orgional playstation as being 64bit? I mean its not a big deal, but seeing it really calls into question the crediblity of the whole article, IMO
Re:Really bad chart (Score:2)
--LP
CNBC report on the X-Box (Score:4, Interesting)
The X-Box on the otherhand is off the shelf parts. The original development cycle took 18 months, but it can be upgraded every year. There aren't much technical hurdles from keeping microsoft from putting P4's into next year's version of the XBox. They can upgrade is every year and it will still run all the games.
It introduces problems like minimum requirements for consoles, but Microsoft is still ahead because they shortened the development cycle. From now on Nintendo and Sony will have to rethink their business model and will have to play catch up to microsoft in the near term.
What about 20 million PS2 units? (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, good luck to Microsoft and Nintendo -- we need more competition in the console wars.
Re:CNBC report on the X-Box (Score:2)
1996 to 2000 saw several hale, dominant Unix vendors crumble (HP, SGI) or even be destroyed (DEC) in a span of a couple of years. Their mistake? They all decided to toss their years of experience in their own systems and move to off-the-shelf hardware (Intel) and software (NT). The lesson here is the same: never throw away your core competency, or you enter a field where any kid in his basement can build your products cheaper.
This is kind of rambling, but I hope my point is clear -- outsourcing works for MS b/c they have nothing in-house. But Sony has it *all* in-house, which can make them formidable indeed.
Console specs are meaningless (Score:4, Insightful)
1. In the spec lists comparing Nintendo's guitar to Sony's guitar, you'd see that one had 6 strings and the other 12. Does this mean you can play twice as many songs on the latter?
2. Sony claims that their guitar is capable of 1000 chords per second. Now what do they mean by that? Is that the limit to how much beating the strings can take? But what if you played 1000 chords per second? Would there be any time for subtleties or even *changing* chords? Of course not, so who cares about that number.
Hardware specs really are like this (for example, 3dfx loved to claim 3 million triangles per second on some of their cards; in reality, programmers only got about 150,000). Fanboys *love* to think that bigger is better and that console X really can have games with 50,000,000 triangles per second, but that's not how it works.
Re:Console specs are meaningless (Score:2)
Still, there is something to say for raw power. In the end, Microsoft is now in the unenviable position of giving away $100 to every new customer while making the customer feel they've payed an excessive or at least significant amount for the console. On the other hand they're in the enviable position of having that thousand foot mountain of cash in the secret basement vault. In the end, to beat the dead horse a little bit more, it's gonna come down to the games, whether they can attract developers who will take advantage of the power that the box undeniably has. Still, I think they could well stumble on this one; they're outside their core competency. The computer and console world is full of tales of the technically superior flash in the pan
Whatever happened to fun? (Score:2, Insightful)
my first memories of game consoles in the 80's when nintendo and sega first broke out in the 80's the emphasis in advertising was on how much fun you could have using their consoles, the average person who buys game consoles is more into professional wresting and not kernel updates.
let's face it, there's a lot of really games out there that have amazing graphics, require state of the art technology to run, had used millions of man hours in their creation, etc... still are still not as adictive and fun as something as silly as a very low tech game you would use on your pda.
it just seems to me that it's getting harder and harder to find a game console that offers a countless number of games that are hard to put down.
Not right about the Atari 2600 (Score:3, Interesting)
-ShieldWolf
Maybe i'm old... (Score:5, Insightful)
My first console was an Atari VCS (the wooden version of the 2600) - My how things have changed.
Call me nostalgic, but I stil believe the 8-bit days were the best. Get your SEGA Master System or your NES (with funky robot if rich) and you were away!
I currently own a PS2, I use it sometimes, GT3 and GTA3 are pretty good games, lots of fun.. But having observed the progression of games over the last, say, 10 years, I believe they came to a bit of a halt when the Internet got popular.
Games houses all thought "Wow, the Internet, let's make our games support online play, let's build communities!".
Sure, that's a great idea. Brings in money. Uses the Internet. Builds huge user bases (look at Ultima Online, Everquest etc.)
Also, around the same time, more and more games started getting ported to new funky 3D versions - of course Wolfenstein/Doom/Quake were the daddy's - other platforms such as the Amiga failed miserably (With the likes of Alien Breed 3D - the apparent Doom competitor). I've not really seen any _really_ original games in the past 5 years, maybe it's not possible anymore? Maybe people are too narrowminded. I don't want any more 3D conversions of driving games, fighting games, or platform games. What does that leave? Is the games market so huge that we've expired originality and can now only focus on making our GPU's in consoles faster to support prettier textures on the same old 3D models. Who knows.
Why were 3D platform games soooo good? Why did everyone love a parallel scrolling Shoot'em UP? Sit a kid of today down infront of a 8/16-bit console with a 'decent' game from the past. Sure, they'll complain "the graphics are crappy!", but give it 5 minutes of gameplay and they probably wouldn't be able to get off it all day. I doubt they'd be the same with their new GameCube or PS2 or XBOX.
What changed? What happened?
Maybe I just got old and don't get the buzz from gaming I used to, I'm quite partial to a bit of GT3/GTA3 on the PS2 and FlightSim/Quake/UT on the PC - but you just don't get the same flashy lights around the 'gaming' thing anymore.
Be it the XBOX, PS2 or GameCube - they all basically do the same thing. Sure, some have slightly higher specs, some have Internet support, some have big this, big that. Whatever. The key to consoles being successful (as they once were) would be for the games designers. Back in the day, games designers/dev guys would make the most out of the limitations of the machine - look at platforms like the C-64/ZX Sinclair. People used to get excited about the demo's cracking groups etc. used to release basically because it was so unreal of the technology at the time. You don't see that anymore. I'm not actually aware of any 'demo scene' on the PC. Did the PC get too good? Is there nothing worth making a demo about these days?
The flair has gone. Modern games are just conversions of old games, made into pretty 3D and added Internet play.
Re:Maybe i'm old... (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, look at Super Monkey Ball (GC) and Jet Grind Radio (DC). These games aren't much like anything that came out before them (I guess SMB can be compared to that old game Marble Madness), and they're a blast to play!
I just think that giving developers a chance to be innovative is too much of a gamble for the big time production houses, and they don't want to risk coming out with a truely unique game, only to find that no one wants to buy it because it's too different.
Hopefully, we'll see an increase in smaller game houses who are more willing/able to take a risk on a new game, and it'll knock the shit out of everything else out there.
They didn't get lame, you bought the wrong system (Score:2)
Look at the N64, and the Gamecube is similar. Sure there are games that you can rent and beat in a weekend, but Nintendo STILL focuses on game play. Their strategy, since the NES, was to make amazing games that would be best sellers and create artificial shortages.
For N64, Bond was an amazing game. Sure, it's a FPS (which I normally hate), but it was DAMNED fun. People played and played and played. The game is still fun 5 years ago.
Super Smash Brothers is AMAZING. It's a fun game that never gets old because you play against your friends. Mario 64 had LOADS of fun and a lot of gameplay. The Zeldas for N64 were creative and interesting. Midway's Blitz and Hang Time are phenomenal lines of games, arcade style sports games are a blast.
Hell, I only played the N64 heavily for the first year before I left for school, I had a blast with it. When I visited the folks on breaks, my brother always had 2-3 new awesome games that were a blast.
Nintendo still focuses on Gameplay. Their lines of games are amazing. I hope that more people interested in gaming see through the "hundred of identical games" and pick up a Gamecube instead and get 5-10 games that they will play for years. That combined with enough Third Parties that you can rent a new game whenever you want should make an awesome system.
The problem is the economics of the system. People rent games and play through them then move on. There are still games that remain loads of fun (I still play a few games of Powerball on the Genesis when I visit my parents), but they don't work in the rental-focused market.
Alex
Re:Maybe i'm old... (Score:2)
If you're relying on the RADIO for innovative music, that's your first problem. There's loads of amazing music coming out these days if you know where to look.
Bad gaming journalism... (Score:2, Interesting)
For instance this article I'm annoyed with above has a large comparison chart in the middle of it that runs comparisons between the X-Box, PS2, and GameCube. Over half of the GC entries are marked "N/A" for not applicable. And stats in the GC column are just wrong in the context of what they're supposed to represent to the other systems. Top example here is the line that compares polygon processing. For X-Box and PS2 they have noted the "maximum poly rate", but on GC since Nintendo doesn't provide such a number, they have listed the "average poly rate"... yet nowhere do they distinguish what these numbers really represent, and the uninformed reader is left thinking that the GC is heavily inferior to the other two systems.
Ok, then next, how about this "3-D audio support in hardware" category? Well this is a bit misleading. All three systems have the ability to output 3-D audio... the GC supports Dolby Pro Logic II output, and the PS2 supports Digital Dolby output. Both of these allow for 3-D audio spaces (just listen to Rogue Squadron on the GC and tell me it doesn't feature some of the best separated audio space you've ever heard). All the "3-D audio hardware" does is it provides developers a crutch for their sound production. Now instead of having to actually engineer a program to handle the spatial modification/broadcast of sounds in a game space, they can just create a sound "bump map" (effectively a 2-D drawing with light and dark spots... a simple example would be light places allow sound through, dark spaces reflect sounds) and have their program send the sound clip, it's coordinates, and it's broadcast direction to the chip and the hardware does the rest. While this can be a boon to some developers, it isn't required to have 3-D sound.
Or worse yet, "HDTV support" listed as both Yes for Movie and Game support for X-Box when HDTV support for at least movies was actually canned just a few weeks ago... and wait, what's this, GameCube has N/A for game support??? Did the author of this chart do any research? The GC supports progressive scan output, and a number of games out now and coming soon also feature Anamorphic or 16:9/Anamorphic output to really take full advantage of an widescreen HDTV system.
Look, I'm not against listing comparisons between systems where one system has features that another lacks. But I do think it is a disservice to a company when you compare features that are only on system "A", yet skipping features that only appear on system "B"... or worse, listing a feature on "A" and not even acknowledging the feature on "B" (like in the HDTV game support reference above.
I guess I could say that it would be nice to see someone do a relevant comparison chart sometimes, with entries qualified as needed. Heck, the above mentioned article that shows this chart really doesn't even make use of the chart data, they just threw it in as a space filler to their readers to use for comparison. Unfortunately, if the author of the piece had a clue about what he was writing, he would have either A) not used the chart, or B) added the qualifiers needed to make the chart relevant.
Re:Bad gaming journalism... (Score:2)
Xbox comes with a 10 gig harddrive capable of 50,000 game saves, downloads, character saves and whatnot, PS2 and Gamecube have neither.
Xbox comes with a 100mbit ethernet. PS2 and Gamecube have neither.
Xbox will be upwards compatible with MUCH more success. Say 5 years from now the Xbox will be at 4 ghz, 1 gig ram, 500x dvd rom and half the size, still capable of running previous games without emulation or hardware tricks simply because the process moved forward instead of being completely re-engineered.
Xbox supports "prgressive scanning" on games, and didn't include it on DVD's because mircrosoft wants to sell games, not movies. (but may do so in the future as needed). Gamecube and PS2 don't do progressive scan movies either.
Progressive scanning is still a feature of "Taiste". DVD MOVIES are encoded at what, 500 lines resolution so progressive scanning at those resolutions amounts to what??? NOT MUCH.
Remember, consoles are still "Consumer Devices" Hence they're aren't meant for niche markets of people with 15,000 dollar tv's and they aren't meant to compared to 1,200 dollar progressive scanning dvd players.
However, PS2, Xbox and GC are kick ass systems affordable to the masses and frankly, the Xbox has the "Sex appeal" for those with the big toys already. PS2 was ahead of its time a year ago, and the Game cube is nintendo's toy and nintendo has its own market.
The winner is the consumer. I paid 300.00 for a dvd player 2 years ago, i paid 300 bucks for my xbox wich plays dvds, games and much more. Even if i stick to my 3-5 launch title games and a few more, i still "never lost".
So what is this console war?
Hell, coke, pepsi and dr pepper still duke it out, i can't imagine one ever winning that "war", so why would it be different for any other product? (Mercedes, BMW, Audi..... on and on..)
Operating Systems...Correction. (Score:2, Redundant)
X-Box: W2k Kernel
PS2: Closed, Sony proprietory
Cube: Closed, Nintendo proprietory
That should be:
X-Box: Closed, Microsoft proprietory
PS2: Closed, Sony proprietory
Cube: Closed, Nintendo proprietory
I like how having the OS be the W2k kernel is presented as a bonus. You have to pay a hefty license to develop/publish a game on ALL the systems. Maybe this guy is just a little too used to getting all of his Nvidia hardware and MS software for free.
Amusing fiction (Score:2)
Wow, look how crippled the GameCube's polygon performance is! And the GameCube doesn't even support compressed textures or "simultaneous texture fills"! It looks like GameCube games will have around less than 1/10th the polygons as the other consoles, with a single bad texture on them. This thing sucks! I'm glad I read a good in-depth technical site Tom's Hardware instead of the promotional literature produced by the console maker's themselves. I almost wasted my money on that lame-ass underpowered GameCube!
(Clue for the clueless: that was sarcasm.)
In Tom's defense (Score:2)
On another note,
Funny, I don't remember many people with a 486-66 back then. The BIG deal about Doom was that you DIDN'T need the newest and best PC to run it. Low end 386's did it just fine, if you didn't mind a reduced screen size.
what a lovely history... (not) (Score:2, Insightful)
CDTV and CD32 (Score:2)
This site says the CDTV was released in 1990. Not sure who is right, that was a while back. Anyhow, the specs on this machine was pretty impressive for the time:
Motorola 68000 7.14Mhz 16 Bit CPU
1 Meg Chip RAM
A graphics coprocessor which could display full screen animations at up to 4096 colors
Stereo 4 channel 14 Bit sound chip (the system could also play audio CDs)
DMA Architecture (transfer data with no CPU usage)
1x CD-ROM drive
VCR style case
When you think about it, Commodore basically released the first 16 bit CD-ROM based game console (with the exception that it was designed to look good with the rest of your AV components). A lot of upgrades and such were also available, both from Commodore and third parties (allowing everything from adding floppy and hard drives, a mouse and a keyboard, and more).
The CD32 was just as impressive, considering it was released in 1993:
Motorola 68020 14Mhz 32 Bit CPU
2 Meg Chip RAM
2X speed SCSI CD-ROM
16,000,000 colours Max
Game console style case with top loading CD-ROM
It used the same style sound system as the CDTV and other Amigas. There was also an expansion slot, which was typically used for what was called the "FMV Card" - which essentially allowed you to watch CD-I and VCD movies through the console. The controllers were pretty slick too, from what I remember. So, here you have in 1993, Commodore releases the first 32 Bit CD-ROM based console with movie playing capabilities.
Of course, as we all know, both of these consoles (and Commodore itself) bombed.
I don't understand why, outside of poor marketing (or lack of would be the better way to put it). The same thing happenned to the Neo-Geo and the 3DO. The high price also managed to help on all of these platforms.
But what is the difference today? The marketing by Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft is much higher than what the other consoles did - but I do remember 3DO being marketed pretty hard, same with Neo-Geo. I remember playing a 3DO at Best Buy, next to "next best" offerrings from Sega and Nintendo.
The 3DO was pretty expensive, so were the Neo Geo and CD32. But why is it today super expensive consoles fly off the shelves (even in a recession!), but back then, in relatively good times - they didn't? Can someone explain that?
To top it off, why is it that consoles with way far advanced capabilities don't seem to sell, but ones with marginal capabilities over last year's model seem to sell easily (and really, the capabilities of the X-Box, etc - really aren't that great over last years offerings)?
It is like the market is offered a super sports car for $10,000 - but no one wants it. But when the features that were in it appear in a sedan five years later, selling for the same amount - everyone can't wait!
Actually, I bet the car market works like this too...
Hrm (Score:2, Insightful)
This tomshardware article is just bad. (Score:2, Informative)
There are three types of problems in this chart. In many places the authors put "N/A" because they were simply too lazy to find out the correct specifications. Uninformed readers might get the impression this means the console lacked any features in that category. Secondly, some of the numbers are just wrong. Finally, many of these numbers are comparing apples to oranges. Since the errors seem to be concentrated on the Gamecube, and that's the console I know the most about, I'll just stick to correcting their mistakes on that column in the table.
Graphics Processing Unit_____162.5 MHz, not 200 .5 meg and up cards, an
+____________________________adapter will allow the use of flash
+____________________________cards up to 64 megs in size
Memory Bandwidth_____________2.6 GB/s, not 3.2
Simultaneous Texture Fills___8
Compressed Textures__________6:1 (S3TC)
Storage______________________Standard
Maximum Resolution___________1920x1080
Many of these categories aren't directly comparable. Even the RAM comparison is misleading, because Nintendo decided to use several different types of RAM. There are 24 MBs of so-called "1T-SRAM [mosys.com]," which is actually a new type of DRAM offering improved and more consistent access times and transfer rates. There are also 16 megs of 83 MHz SDRAM, for sound and (speculatively) "other" unspecified purposes. Flipper has 3MB of embedded memory in the form of 2MB frame buffer and a 1MB texture cache. This totals 43 megs. On the other hand, the Xbox is a UMA machine with 64 MB of 200 MHz DDR-Dram. It has more memory and memory bandwidth, but actual performance is further from the peak numbers listed, in comparison to the Gamecube, and UMA designs are less bandwidth efficient. Therefore the memory bandwidth numbers aren't comparable either. The Gamecube is really the most bandwidth efficient of all 3 consoles, for a handful of reasons.
The polygon performance numbers given are meaningless, and clearly whoever posted those numbers has no idea what they mean. "6-12M/s" is Nintendo's conservative estimate of what developers would achieve in game. The PS2 and Xbox numbers are probably for flat-shaded triangle meshes - a number which is nearly useless in revealing what the hardware can do in a real game. Unless, of course, I, Robot [mameworld.net] becomes popular again.
Pardon my shitty chart, but the <pre> tag isn't allowed anymore, and the lameness filter was driving me nuts.
Sludge (Score:2, Insightful)
First, look at the history. One page attempting to cover console history from its infancy to present?? Oh but wait let's throw in some crap about PC games as well, and mash everything all together! Idiots.
Second, their concept of the various generations is way wrong. You want a brief overview, here you go:
Prehistoric Age
(Atari 2600, Coleco, Intellivision, etc) Mostly dominated by Atari but definite niches for the other systems. Good debate to be had as to respective merits.
Age of Revolution
Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Master System
This is what really brought consoles into homes. Almost everybody had one or the other of these. Yeah, it depended on your region or local distribution, but both systems had excellent and addictive titles. Again, you can have great debates over which one was more dominant.
Round of 16 (bits)
The logical extension of the previous age. SNES & Genesis. One more time, great games and great fun. Sure that TurboGrafx and some other crap was in here mixing things up a bit.
Pre-Modern
PSX, N64, and Dreamcast
These span a pretty wide time period. But you look at what people were actually playing, and it's clear that recent competition was between these 3, until we reach the present.
Now - "Next-generation" consoles are here today!
PS2, GameCube, and X-Box
Well, there's been enough talk debating the respective merits of these suckers. Time will tell the winner.
Final rant
PC games started up for real around the time of NES. By for real I mean getting serious about graphics and starting to drive the hardware revolution (which I think was possibly one point of this misguided article). Once that first VGA monitor hit, that really kicked things off. (Does anyone remember MCGA?
Since then, PC games have continued merrily along in their SEPARATE MARKET from consoles. Let's all say that slowly. SEPARATE MARKET. There NEVER will be an integration between the two, the differences in the platforms are far too great. People need to stop with the arguments of which one is better since they're just different.
Look at it: Screen resolution, user interface (10-12 key controller vs. 101-key + mouse), storage capacity, delivery mediums, the list goes on and on.
If Microsoft's business plan is to merge the two together and dominate all gaming worldwide, well they're screwed. They'll get beat by people writing games just for PC's that do a better job, and they'll get beat by people writing console-specific games that do a better job.
Terrible article, but at least it can kick off the discussion...
-a rogue Nugget
Missing a few things (Score:2, Interesting)
Interesting nonetheless, but it seemed like he was missing a few things.
If you like this... (Score:3, Informative)
I just read that piece last night because I stay about 6 months behind in all my magazine reading. I would like to say I do it deliberately to keep things "in perspective," but its more like I've got too many classes and too much work and too much web site to read the things when they first come in.
One more moderation and I'll hit the karma ceiling...
Re:ThreeDoh! (Score:3, Interesting)
Star Control 2: great game single & multiplayer
Killing Time: neat little FPS
Slayer: randomized D&D dungeon call in 3D- not bad for a play now and again
3D Heli Backpack game: name elludes me
PO'D: it had mobs that shot poo at you
Cyberspace game RPG/Action: another name lost hehe
Samurai Shodown: was a perfect port of SS...good enough that I was able to ditch the ol NeoGeo (now there was an odd system- $250 games! I got mine used with SS and some golf game but could never afford to buy new games for it!)
Re:ThreeDoh! (Score:2)
SS on the 3d0 was *not* a perfect port of the Arcade (NeoGeo game). Sprites were different. Frames of animation were missing. The scaling was off. Timing was off for a few players. Yes it was a *damn* fine port, by far the best of that generation of hardware.
But perfect it was not.
(former owner of SS1/SS2/SS3 and SS4 on a NeoGeo JAMMA cabinet)
Re:A little research please (Score:2)
Re:A little research please (Score:2)
Re:A little research please (Score:2)
ummm where is NES? (Score:2, Insightful)
another thing that bugged me, was in the text of the article the jump from 1979's zork to 1993's Doom. i seem to remember being alive in the 80's and i think that i played some video games, pretty sure at least.
i guess the author's intention was to race quickly through the history of consoles (which he harldly talks about, save for one incomplete chart) to get to the hardware of the new stuff, since it is tom's hardware. but whatever, very incomplete...blarg.
Re:There's no surprise that Nintendo is still in i (Score:3, Insightful)
Really, this person doesn't seem to complain about the X-Box's Halo, which could be said to be just a revamp of Quake, which was a revamp of Doom, which was a revamp of Wolfenstein. Or DOA3, which is yet another copy of every other fighting game out there. Naturally these statements aren't entirely true, but it is the same type of argument.
Yes, Nintendo recylces the same video game characters and general themes, but they do a great job of putting them into new gaming experiences that show vast improvements over other games.
NES: Super Mario Brothers was one of the first side scrolling action games ever. Clearly a big step up from the one screen games like Donkey Kong.
SNES: Super Mario World was a huge improvement over the original SMB concept. Larger (sorta non-linear) world, multiple exits in one level, more power ups and abilities for Mario, Mario can ride on "Yoshi."
N64: Super Mario 64 was a much different game than
the side scrollers, being 3D.
With totally different objectives, power ups, level ideas, and abilities.
Game Cube: Luigi's Castle isn't a Mario game. It is a totally different type of game in which Luigi captures ghosts with a vacuum cleaner. It is a bit strange, but it isn't the same thing we've seen before at all.
And of course, by mentioning Mario and other kiddie games, we are of course forgetting Nintendo's other titles. Most of them might be family friendly in that both the small kids and adults can enjoy them, but that doesn't make them kiddie. Zelda and Metroid come to mind, as well as the fact that Miyamoto doesn't produce crappy games in the opinion of most gamers, even those that don't own Nintendo consoles. His worst game was probably Zelda 2, which is a lot better than the average PS2 title by far.
Playing as the same plumber over and over has never ceased to be fun, really.
Re:There's no surprise that Nintendo is still in i (Score:2)
first side scrolling action
Have you forgotten Moon Patrol? Cool side scrolling game. You couldn't do nearly as much, but then it came out a lot earlier. I seem to recall other side scrolling games as well, though few were particularly memerable.