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The Lifespan of The Nintendo Entertainment System

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the i-miss-battletoads dept.

Via Press the Buttons, a node over at Everything2 with an excellent synopsis of the lifespan of the Nintendo Entertainment System. It details the background of the video game industry at the time that the NES came onto the stage, the launch and the peak of its success, and the factors that led to the console's eventual decline. From the writeup: "In the aftermath of the home video game crash in 1983, nobody in North America seemed to want anything more to do with video games. Having been burned by the atrociously bad Atari 2600 games flooding the market and the rise of the home computer, both retailers and parents, and to a lesser degree gamers, were reluctant to risk their hard-earned money on another console. Analysts claimed that video games were yet another fad in an infamously faddish time that came and went and now are gone."

20 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. ...A-B-Select-Start? by tesseract5d · · Score: 2, Insightful

    to this day, my friends and i still play complete seasons of TECMO super bowl. it is one of the greatest games of all time. i can't believe they speak of the NES in the past tense! IT LIVES!!

  2. Almost nostalgic by DarthMAD · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This article reminded me of how no matter how advanced video games get in terms of graphics and plot, there's something to be said for the simple pleasure of shooting simulated ducks on the NES... Sometimes you just can't beat the classics.

    1. Re:Almost nostalgic by hunterx11 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes, but NES games lack immersion. I mean, how many times have I shot that fucking dog, only to leave him unscathed?

      --
      English is easier said than done.
    2. Re:Almost nostalgic by WaterBreath · · Score: 5, Funny

      Obviously you weren't a dedicated player insistent on perfection. In those later rounds, every bullet is precious, and not to be wasted on hopelessly firing at the dog. Of course, beyond round 18 (or maybe 20?) if the dog has opportunity laugh, the game is over.

      Round 62, baby! Three times, the score rolled over back to zero. Then my mom shut it off. I'd never been so angry. I was gonna take a photo and send it to Nintendo Power and everything. But that dream was crushed.

  3. Total Immersion by Anusien · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't know, I think Duck Hunt was pretty real. Don't tell me I'm the only one that used a treadmill as a trench and ducked behind it, shooting the ducks from behind cover.

  4. Re:The NES never died. by SUBREW503 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My family still got the original hardware funtioning well. It had to be repaired twice, but for being the all consuming entertainment for four rough housing brothers thats's pretty good. And just try to find someone to fix a busted ps2 or xbox. The support isnt the same.

  5. There are so many inaccuracies in this article by Dwedit · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are so many inaccuracies in this article! Let's see...
    * The NES has 2k bytes of ram built in, not 4k. Cartridges can contain an 8k RAM expansion to expand the total RAM to 10k, the expansion can also be battery backed to save games.
    * The NES is not capable of rendering 16x16 sprites, only 8x8 or 8x16 sprites. Those of course can be combined to form larger sprites.

    Then some nitpicks:
    * I've heard from other articles that Nintendo never tried selling the Famicom directly in America before redesigning it, but I have nothing to back this up with.
    * Kirby's Adventure, weighing in at 768 kilobytes, is far larger than Dragon Warrior 4.
    * The article fails to mention the bootleg joysticks being sold today which contain illegal NES multicarts built in, these display directly on a TV and have no cartridge slot. No problem, this is probably beyond the scope of the article.

    1. Re:There are so many inaccuracies in this article by droberge · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've fixed the inaccuracies you've mentioned. The 4K figure came from a previous writer who added the CPU RAM and the PPU RAM to get 4K and a bad mental hex-decimal conversion ($0800 = 2048 not 4096). As for the 16x16 thing, I'm so used to square sprites that I saw the 16 and assumed 16x16.

      DW4 was the largest ROM I'd ever seen; checking again it seems I was mistaken. That's fixed.

      Thanks for the corrections.

      droberge (a.k.a. RPGeek)

  6. For More information... by -kertrats- · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would definitely recommed "The Ultimate History of Video Games", by Stephen Kent. It's about 600 pages long and is a comprehensive history of videogames from the 1920's pinball tables to 2001, with special emphasis on the activities of the 1980's. I read it in about a week, it's fascinating stuff for anyone interested in the field.

    --
    The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
    1. Re:For More information... by superpulpsicle · · Score: 2, Funny

      I was actually crazy enough to call up my local library to see if they had this book in stock. The librarian laughed her ass off, and she hung up on me.

      I then bought the book later. Sat on the toilet for literally half a day, and read a record 300 pages. Damn glad I didn't take the librarian seriously.

    2. Re:For More information... by BigDogCH · · Score: 2, Funny

      Half a day on the toilet? DAMN! Could you walk afterwards? May I suggest a bed pan?

  7. Wikipedia's article by LGagnon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wikipedia has their article on the NES on the main page today. It also provides plenty of info on the system.

    1. Re:Wikipedia's article by badasscat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Wikipedia has their article on the NES on the main page today.

      No mention in that article of the failed Atari deal, one of the biggest and most important non-events in video game history.

      I also don't agree with 1983 being listed as the year of the video game crash, as seems to be the current fashion (though Google still lists more hits for "video game crash 1984" than "video game crash 1983"), but I guess it's debateable. 1983 was really the start of trouble, though, not the end of it. It was the year of stock market declines and then a very bad Christmas, but 1984 was when the bottom really fell out, and when all current consoles were pulled from the US market.

      Up until a few years ago, when history started being rewritten by those who are too young to even remember it, 1984 was always the year listed for the "great video game crash" - that's when the console gaming industry basically ceased to be. You could argue that the "crash" really came with the stock market declines and the poor 1983 Christmas sales, but it just strikes me as revisionist, and those types of events happen in the industry even today. We called it a "crash" in 1984 because of the cataclysmic events that occured as a result of what happened in 1983 and early 1984, not the events leading up to it.

    2. Re:Wikipedia's article by antifoidulus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Until ironically it was nintendo who reneged on a deal w/ sony for cd support for the super famicom

      --
      Monstar L
  8. Re:The NES never died. by MagicDude · · Score: 5, Funny

    And just try to find someone to fix a busted ps2 or xbox. The support isnt the same.

    That's because it was really easy to service a NES. Fixing any problem on the Nintendo went something like this:

    Pick up cartrige
    FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF (inhale)
    FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF (inhale)

    Pick up Nintendo
    FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF (inhale)
    FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF (inhale)

    Repeat until disired results are accomplished.

  9. bad games by mabu · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That's the reason why the last console I purchased was a N64. Either there was a shortage of games, or a glut of mediocre games on the market, or they were all of the same 2-3 varieties, which is the way I think the industry is now. I suspect unless game developers get more creative, the console industry will experience another decline.

    1. Re:bad games by Zorilla · · Score: 2, Insightful

      1) PoP - Frustrating puzzles that penalize you by making you watch long cutscenes over and over if you die and have to restore your last save...
      2) ICO - Why do you have to skip the opening cutscene 7+ times just to get started? And I don't want to hear anything about it suggesting my attention span - FMVs are never that important.
      3) Katamari Damacy - fantastic and hilarious game, but very, very short. Small issues like the Ursa Major level. A pixel is not a bear!
      4) I don't have much bad to say about Tony Hawk games. Underground just got way too hard on the San Diego level - 160,000 point combos alone just doesn't cut it anymore (was good to see their portrayal of home, though!).

      I suggest Metroid Prime (for long term single player gaming) and the Burnout series of games (for the crashes, of course). Sure the first appears to be another FPS, but it is much more. Burnout 2 and 3 may look like budget Wal-Mart racers, but it is also more more entertaining than that.

      --

      It would be cool if it didn't suck.
  10. Re:The NES never died. by KozmoStevnNaut · · Score: 2, Informative

    (Yes, I know... *whoosh" goes the joke over my head...)

    Actually, dust wasn't the problem. It was the pins. They would get bent more and more each time you inserted a cartridge, to the point of not making contact anymore. A small screwdriver and a lot of patience can fix that ;)

    --
    Eat the rich.
  11. The NES is alive and well in Japan. by wheresdrew · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It's just not made by Nintendo anymore.

    Cyber Gadget makes a unit called the Famulator which is a re-designed (or re-re-designed depending on how you look at it) NES toploader that sells for just under 3,000 yen. You can use your US NES carts on it, but you'll need an adapter like the one sold by Lik-Sang.

  12. Re:The NES never died. by Zorilla · · Score: 3, Funny

    Everybody I know came up with special magic smacking-the-side-of-the-case patterns that got the NES to read the cartridge. Smack left-left-right-blow-smack top-play....*red* *red* FUCK!

    I've inherited my late Grandpa's old NES with low mileage, so I don't have to deal with that anymore.

    --

    It would be cool if it didn't suck.