3 ms·
Bad quality control is just one of the factors in the 1983 video game crash. PC games also became popular later and being able to freely install any game from
by bzzzt 3y ago
Bad quality control is just one of the factors in the 1983 video game crash.
PC games also became popular later and being able to freely install any game from any publisher you like hasn't killed the platform. The amount of crap on app stores and digital console stores still is quite high, even on the Switch store from 'quality minded' Nintendo which doesn't put a dent in sales.
My guess is the other factors, most probably the early market saturation, panicking investors and competition from home computers have contributed a lot more to the crash.
- leereeves 3y agoI believe it was mainly the technical limitations of the Atari 2600 console, which couldn't even run a decent version of Pac-Man. Instead they produced this blocky, flickering monstrosity: https://atarionline.org/atari-2600/pac-man https://atarionline.org/atari-2600/pac-man As arcade games improved, Atari console games began to look like garbage by comparison, even the high-profile games produced by Atari, like Pac-Man.
- bzzzt 3y agoThe flicker was not that bad on CRT TV's of the time (which had very long phosphor decay times). I still own a few 2600s and a lot of games including Pac Mac which is of course not the same as the arcade version but more of a simplified version requiring a bit of imagination. Which isn't surprising coming from a machine with 128 bytes of memory and no framebuffer ;) Those arcade games didn't improve by themselves though, you needed better hardware for better games. While Atari didn't do themselves a favour by trying to squeeze every penny from the 2600 they did build successors. But by then the economy tanked and the competition from Nintendo started.