Nintendo Entertainment System Turns 25

harrymcc writes "On October 18th 1985, Nintendo launched its NES console in the US, reviving a near-dead video game industry and establishing Nintendo as a leader in home consoles. We've celebrated with a roundup of some of the stranger spinoffs that the NES has inspired over the last quarter century, from odd controllers to a lock parents could use to disable the console to do-it-yourself projects like an NES built into a Super Mario cartridge."

Comments

Re:Near-dead video game industry?

[commodore64_love]

>>>Video games where not dead,

Right. People just write multi-page articles about things that never happened? I guess this article I'm about to quote is an ILLUZIONS and doesn't exist? You're probably one of those NUTTERS who thinks the moon landing enver happened either, or that the Dot-Com Crash of 2000 is mythology. Dumb fuck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

The '''North American video game crash of 1983''' (sometimes known as the '''[[Atari, Inc.|Atari]] Debacle''' or the '''video game crash of 1983 and 1984''' because it was in that year that the full effects of the crash became apparent to consumers) brought an abrupt end to what is considered the [[History of video game consoles (second generation)|second generation]] of console video gaming in North America. It almost destroyed the then-fledgling industry and led to the [[bankruptcy]] of several companies producing [[home computer]]s and [[video game console]]s in [[North America]]. It lasted about two years, and many business analysts of the time expressed doubts about the long-term viability of video game consoles. The video-game industry was revitalized a few years later, mostly due to the widespread success of the [[Nintendo Entertainment System]] (NES), which was released in North America in {{vgy|1985}} and became extremely popular by {{vgy|1987}}.{{cite journal |author=Consalvo, Mia |year=2006 |title=Console video games and global corporations: Creating a hybrid culture |journal=New Media Society |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=117-137 |doi=10.1177/1461444806059921 |url=http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/1/117 |archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20080228191914/http://intl-nms.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/8/1/117.pdf |archivedate=2008-02-28 |format=PDF}}

There were several reasons for the crash, but the main cause was supersaturation of the market with hundreds of mostly low-quality games.

== Causes and factors ==

The American video game console crash of 1983 was caused by a combination of factors. Although some were more important than others, all played a role in saturating, and then imploding, the video game industry.

=== Plethora of games and consoles ===
At the time of the US crash, there were numerous consoles on the market, including the [[Atari 2600]], the [[Atari 5200]], the [[Bally Astrocade]], the [[ColecoVision]], the Coleco Gemini (a 2600 clone), the [[Emerson Arcadia 2001]], the [[Fairchild Channel F|Fairchild Channel F System II]], the [[Odyssey 2|Magnavox Odyssey2]], the [[Mattel]] [[Intellivision]] (and its just-released update with several peripherals, the [[Intellivision II]]), the [[Sears]] Tele-Games systems (which included both 2600 and Intellivision clones), the TandyvisioN (an Intellivision clone for [[Radio Shack]]), and the [[Vectrex]].

Each one of these consoles had its own library of games, and many had large third-party libraries. Likewise, many of these same companies announced yet another generation of consoles for {{vgy|1984}}, such as the [[Odyssey3]], and [[Atari 7800]].{{cite news| last = Taylor| first = Alexander L. III| title = Pac-Man Finally Meets His Match| publisher = Time Magazine|date=1982-12-20| url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923197,00.html| accessdate = 2006-12-04 }}

Adding to the industry's woes was a glut of poor titles from hastily financed startup companies. These games, combined with weak high-profile Atari 2600 games, such as the [[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game)|video game version]] of the hit movie ''[[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial]]'' and an [[Pac-Man (Atari 2600)|infamous port]] of the popular [[arcade game]] ''[[Pac-Man]]'', seriously damaged the reputation of the industry. Finally, Atari's market-leading [[Atari 2600|2600]], now in its sixth year, was starting to approach [[market saturation|saturation]]