|
Post by goldenwheels on Oct 12, 2021 19:20:47 GMT
That's a good point about the controller cost. I had forgotten most systems that had 2p....did in fact come with 2 controllers. I mean, my awesome Atari XE didn't, but I think all or most of the Nintendos system sets did. I know it likely never had the momentum to get there but...maybe a "TurbogGrafx Action Set" with a system, a tap, two controllers, and say, Bomberman, could have been a thing.
And man it is 25+ years later and the flapping seagull program from the back of the Atari manual has as of yet to be useful to me. Someday. (goddamn that was a LONG year until I got a NES the next Xmas)
|
|
|
Post by dshadoff on Oct 12, 2021 19:23:05 GMT
I don't recall any 2-player system coming with two controllers - in the age of detachable controllers. I mean, there were a lot of older systems that were wired with 2 controllers (Telstar, TV tennis, etc.) , but they weren't removable.
|
|
|
Post by goldenwheels on Oct 12, 2021 19:37:54 GMT
|
|
|
Post by elmer on Oct 12, 2021 19:42:34 GMT
And man it is 25+ years later and the flapping seagull program from the back of the Atari manual has as of yet to be useful to me. Someday. (goddamn that was a LONG year until I got a NES the next Xmas) This highlights one of the big differences between the US market and the European market BITD. Americans were taught from an early age to be passive consumers, and the Europeans dove hook-line-and-sinker into the 1980s & 1990s home-computer era ... resulting in a huge chunk of the 1990s & 2000s game products either being developed by European companies, or by American companies that had lured European developers over to live/work in the USA. So ... maybe your Mom and Dad were just trying to look out for your future!
|
|
pokun
Gun-headed
Posts: 85
Homebrew skills: HuC6280 assembly
|
Post by pokun on Oct 12, 2021 21:59:30 GMT
Yeah our PAL NES also came with 2 controllers, I'm pretty sure all versions of the NES came with 2, any extra controllers were mainly sold as spare parts or later for a Four Score, the NES is based on the Famicom after all which followed the old Pong tradition of 2 built-in paddles or joysticks. Several 1-player games such as Zelda and Metroid requires a second controller to save (without suiciding), so it would be a possible compatibility problem to not include a second controller as most games were designed for the Famicom (then again they removed the microphone which is another compatibility problem).
Our PAL SNES (which is an early PAL model) came only with one controller for sure so I remember we bought a second one right away along with the system. I guess only early NTSC SFC/SNES and some Asian versions came with two controllers, then they started packing it with only one in all regions. And after that Nintendo always sold consoles with only one controller by default, until the Switch (well sort of).
I'm not sure if the Mega Drive came with one or two controllers, but pretty much all consoles after the SNES always came with 1 controller by default.
|
|
|
Post by dshadoff on Oct 12, 2021 22:14:08 GMT
OK, so modern times want to mess with our memories...
Based on examining packaging from the day: - NES came with 2 controllers - Genesis came with one - TG16 came with one
BUT: - NES Classic came with only one, the opposite of "in the day" - Genesis mini came with two, the opposite of "in the day"
|
|
|
Post by dshadoff on Oct 12, 2021 22:19:30 GMT
Americans were taught from an early age to be passive consumers, and the Europeans dove hook-line-and-sinker into the 1980s & 1990s home-computer era ... resulting in a huge chunk of the 1990s & 2000s game products either being developed by European companies, or by American companies that had lured European developers over to live/work in the USA. I don't know about that. For every Spectrum game, there were games on Color Computer or C64 made in North America. There were an overwhelming number of Apple games. Rather than buy Amigas, Americans bought IBM-compatible PCs... and wrote a lot of games for that computer, despite the fact that it was particularly ill-suited for games...
|
|
|
Post by spenoza on Oct 12, 2021 23:16:47 GMT
This highlights one of the big differences between the US market and the European market BITD. Americans were taught from an early age to be passive consumers, and the Europeans dove hook-line-and-sinker into the 1980s & 1990s home-computer era Haha nope. The games market in the US started with college students making games on mainframes which we’re NOT intended in the least to host such nonsense. As such, these folks already had some programming basics under their belt when the Altair, Apple, and Commodore democratized computing. But even then, the US games market came from hobbyists. Ultima, Wizardry, Lode Runner, all hobbyists starting out. I did do some BASIC on my Apple II. It was built-in. But I couldn’t make anything as cool as what I could “borrow” on floppy. Still, the tools were there the whole time.
|
|
bonkzonkmcgonk
Gun-headed
Posts: 54
Fave PCE Shooter: Air Zonk
Fave PCE Platformer: Dragon's Curse
Fave PCE Game Overall: Bonk's Adventure & Revenge
Fave PCE RPG: Legend of Valkyrie
Currently Playing: Son Son II
|
Post by bonkzonkmcgonk on Oct 13, 2021 4:12:02 GMT
There have been lots of American PC games developers. Sierra, LucasArts, Id Software, and Apogee just to name a few. John Romero's Doom is one of the most popular games of all time.
|
|
pokun
Gun-headed
Posts: 85
Homebrew skills: HuC6280 assembly
|
Post by pokun on Oct 13, 2021 14:55:55 GMT
Of course Americans made lots of games, but I don't think there is much doubt that Americans produced much less games in the 80s and 90s than before and after compared to Asians and Europeans. I've always thought it was because of the North American video game crash.
Yeah I've always thought it was a mystery that the IBM-PC got so big outside business-use since it was so bad for games at the time. All other PCs (with the exception of Sinclair's) mainly became popular if they were good for games, like the Commodore and MSX computers which both were designed with games in mind and got great libraries. I know that Bill Gates suppressed MSX in America when they thought how it could hurt their OS sales, but I don't get why Amiga didn't do well in its own home ground.
|
|
|
Post by elmer on Oct 13, 2021 16:42:57 GMT
Of course Americans made lots of games, but I don't think there is much doubt that Americans produced much less games in the 80s and 90s than before and after compared to Asians and Europeans. I've always thought it was because of the North American video game crash. Yes, that is my experience and point. Particularly when it comes to the console games of the 4th-6th generations, SNES/Genesis to GameCube/PS2/Xbox, American developers (and NOT American publishers) where under-represented (by population) in the industry compared to European developers. I tend to see the reason for this as being the widespread availability and popularity of generations of consoles which could not be developed for by their owners, compared to the home-computer revolution that made it possible for *anyone* to develop a game. Europeans (except for the rich) missed the whole Atari VCS and Intellivision generation of consoles, and so skipped the American market-crash of 1983, then they mostly skipped the 3rd-generation NES and SMS in favor of home-computers, and they didn't really get back into consoles until the Genesis and SNES. The developer trend didn't last forever, because although the early-to-late 1990s saw American college and home developers making almost-exclusively PC games, not console games, it lead to the resurgance of American console developers again in the 2000s, once console hardware became more powerful, and started its transition into being a glorified-PC.
|
|
|
Post by elmer on Oct 13, 2021 16:56:17 GMT
As such, these folks already had some programming basics under their belt when the Altair, Apple, and Commodore democratized computing. But even then, the US games market came from hobbyists. Ultima, Wizardry, Lode Runner, all hobbyists starting out. I did do some BASIC on my Apple II. It was built-in. But I couldn’t make anything as cool as what I could “borrow” on floppy. Still, the tools were there the whole time. Except for the Commodore 64, you're mostly talking about the generation before the one that I am, and a lot of those earlier developers had either burned-out, sold-out, or retired before the 4th-generation of consoles. There were definitely those that did stay in the industry, and I never said that there *no* American developers, but there was a large and noticable shift toward hiring European developers for a number of years.
|
|
|
Post by dshadoff on Oct 13, 2021 17:03:11 GMT
Particularly when it comes to the console games of the 4th-6th generations, SNES/Genesis to GameCube/PS2/Xbox, American developers (and NOT American publishers) where under-represented (by population) in the industry compared to European developers. If we’re talking about *Consoles*, then I agree with that. Americans suffered from the videogame crash of 83-84, and then there was money to be made using computers to consult to business (but a huge number also made games, largely in spare time as shareware rather than commercial ventures) on PCs. You might not count those PC games though, because the PC wasn’t popular in Europe yet. It certainly wasn’t popular in Japan. By population percentage, I’d wager that Europe and USA were about equivalent on games, but on vastly different platforms. On a raw aggregate population level, It doesn’t help that Europe’s population is much larger than the USA.
|
|
|
Post by spenoza on Oct 13, 2021 17:52:05 GMT
I think Dave has it. Most of the amateur and small developers in the US during that time were working in the IBM PC compatible space. IBM PCs were just so ubiquitous post Apple and Commodore. Macs were popular, too, but not as much for games, and the Amiga never took, really. I will say, though, that the C64 and Apple II market in the US did carry on for some time even into the late 80s.
|
|
pokun
Gun-headed
Posts: 85
Homebrew skills: HuC6280 assembly
|
Post by pokun on Oct 13, 2021 19:30:34 GMT
Europeans (except for the rich) missed the whole Atari VCS and Intellivision generation of consoles, and so skipped the American market-crash of 1983, then they mostly skipped the 3rd-generation NES and SMS in favor of home-computers, and they didn't really get back into consoles until the Genesis and SNES. Skipping the 3rd generation might be true for the UK and the central Europe, but definitely not true for Scandinavia. Video games were as popular in Scandinavia as in Japan and North America, in particular the Game & Watch, and later the NES, boomed (PET, VIC-20, C64 and Amiga computers were also about as popular in Sweden as in Japan and North America). The SMS also had a presence in Sweden, but Sega was always second to Nintendo, unlike in South America (and in UK to a degree) where Sega dominated with the SG-1000 and SMS. The SNES also won the 16-bit war in Scandinavia, which is totally unlike Europe as a whole where the Mega Drive won. Particularly when it comes to the console games of the 4th-6th generations, SNES/Genesis to GameCube/PS2/Xbox, American developers (and NOT American publishers) where under-represented (by population) in the industry compared to European developers. If we’re talking about *Consoles*, then I agree with that. Americans suffered from the videogame crash of 83-84, and then there was money to be made using computers to consult to business (but a huge number also made games, largely in spare time as shareware rather than commercial ventures) on PCs. You might not count those PC games though, because the PC wasn’t popular in Europe yet. It certainly wasn’t popular in Japan. By population percentage, I’d wager that Europe and USA were about equivalent on games, but on vastly different platforms. On a raw aggregate population level, It doesn’t help that Europe’s population is much larger than the USA. Well consoles covers at least as much of the gaming industry as computers, and Europeans and Asians didn't exactly stop producing computer games during this time. Not until the 16-bit era anyway when consoles dominated the Japanese game market and computer games declined.
|
|