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> This, I think, is pure recent bias I don’t believe so. The Atari almost killed the VG industry until the NES revived it. [1] I think a big reason for this is

> This, I think, is pure recent bias I don’t believe so. The Atari almost killed the VG industry until the NES revived it. [1] I think a big reason for this is how much better the games on NES were vs. the 2600 (but also the business and market saturation). Some of the ports were just awful. I particularly remember how disappointed I was when I played Pac-Man, thinking it felt nothing like the arcade version. I had fond memories of going to Service Merchandise playing Donkey Kong on the Colecovision, amazed at how much better a port it was vs. Atari 2600. Also, it’s hard to claim recency bias when you’re looking at 37 vs. 41 years ago — those periods blur together for me at this point. :) A lot of NES games I still enjoy today are long dead and irrelevant today (Guardian Legend, Willow, Destiny of an Emporor, Crystalis, Faxanadu, just to name a few). [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983

morelisp 4y ago
> The Atari almost killed the VG industry until the NES revived it. This is... not really an accurate way to describe the crash. Primarily overenthusiastic retailers, secondarily low-quality non-Atari developers, thirdly Atari itself tripping over itself to react to both, almost killed the industry. That's not really "the Atari [VCS]" - 15 million people still wanted Atari games, they just didn't want rushed licenses and cash-ins. > it’s hard to claim recency bias when you’re looking at 37 vs. 41 years ago It's not 37 vs. 41 years old, it's Nintendo last week vs. Atari 41 years ago - even if you followed it all the way through the mess of the Jaguar years (which I won't defend), still 20 years ago. Meanwhile you can't not know what Mario or a pokémon is even if you never played the games. > A lot of NES games I still enjoy today are long dead and irrelevant today (Guardian Legend, Willow, Destiny of an Emporor, Crystalis, Faxanadu, just to name a few). These games regularly top "best NES games" lists, LotW as a sequel to Faxanadu also. (Except maybe Willow, which is a little more polarizing - but in part because everyone compares it to Crystalis...) There a ton of genuinely forgotten NES games; you didn't name them because you've forgotten them.

morelisp 4y ago

> The Atari almost killed the VG industry until the NES revived it. This is... not really an accurate way to describe the crash. Primarily overenthusiastic retailers, secondarily low-quality non-Atari developers, thirdly Atari itself tripping over itself to react to both, almost killed the industry. That's not really "the Atari [VCS]" - 15 million people still wanted Atari games, they just didn't want rushed licenses and cash-ins. > it’s hard to claim recency bias when you’re looking at 37 vs. 41 years ago It's not 37 vs. 41 years old, it's Nintendo last week vs. Atari 41 years ago - even if you followed it all the way through the mess of the Jaguar years (which I won't defend), still 20 years ago. Meanwhile you can't not know what Mario or a pokémon is even if you never played the games. > A lot of NES games I still enjoy today are long dead and irrelevant today (Guardian Legend, Willow, Destiny of an Emporor, Crystalis, Faxanadu, just to name a few). These games regularly top "best NES games" lists, LotW as a sequel to Faxanadu also. (Except maybe Willow, which is a little more polarizing - but in part because everyone compares it to Crystalis...) There a ton of genuinely forgotten NES games; you didn't name them because you've forgotten them.