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I'm not sure what you mean by smash hits, but the Sierra adventure games were massively popular (for PC games) from the mid 80s-90s. Prince of Persia was a plat

I'm not sure what you mean by smash hits, but the Sierra adventure games were massively popular (for PC games) from the mid 80s-90s. Prince of Persia was a platformer, and the PC version was released in 1990. The Keen games were successful enough, and within a year (late 1991) had graphics and gameplay that were what I would consider SNES-like. Being able to play Mario on a PC would've been a killer app for sure. The popularity of emulators since the mid-late 90s should be enough proof for that. Obviously RTS and FPS turned out to be the defining genres of PC gaming because of the tight controls, netplay, and being able to take advantage of Moore's law, but I think Nintendo missed out on a good chance to expand their business.

nkozyra 11y ago
My point is none of those games approached the sales of even modestly popular console games. And emulators aren't a fair comparison because they exactly replicate the game as it existed in console. Anytime crossovers like this were made up through the late 90s, they were always a shell of their console counterparts.
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aaronem 11y ago
> massively popular (for PC games) And there's the problem. "Massively popular for PC games", at the time, would equate to "a serious flop for a first-party console game". People would buy an NES so their kids could play a popular game. Almost nobody who didn't already have one would buy a PC for similar reasons. And anyone who already had a PC almost certainly already had a console as well, so there'd be no meaningful additional market in PC ports. Nintendo had every reason in the world to make the decision they did, and none whatsoever to do otherwise. > graphics and gameplay that were what I would consider SNES-like You might, but no one else would. The Keen series's graphics are better than the NES could manage until very late into its lifecycle if at all, but they're certainly not up to what the SNES could do, even without the Mode 7 coprocessor.

nkozyra 11y ago

My point is none of those games approached the sales of even modestly popular console games. And emulators aren't a fair comparison because they exactly replicate the game as it existed in console. Anytime crossovers like this were made up through the late 90s, they were always a shell of their console counterparts.

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aaronem 11y ago

> massively popular (for PC games) And there's the problem. "Massively popular for PC games", at the time, would equate to "a serious flop for a first-party console game". People would buy an NES so their kids could play a popular game. Almost nobody who didn't already have one would buy a PC for similar reasons. And anyone who already had a PC almost certainly already had a console as well, so there'd be no meaningful additional market in PC ports. Nintendo had every reason in the world to make the decision they did, and none whatsoever to do otherwise. > graphics and gameplay that were what I would consider SNES-like You might, but no one else would. The Keen series's graphics are better than the NES could manage until very late into its lifecycle if at all, but they're certainly not up to what the SNES could do, even without the Mode 7 coprocessor.