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The Lifespan of The Nintendo Entertainment System
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.