I disagree that they were under-powered compared to home computers, at least for their intended purposes of playing arcade-style videogames. The computers of t

I disagree that they were under-powered compared to home computers, at least for their intended purposes of playing arcade-style videogames. The computers of the time by and large didn't have the sort of dedicated tilemap-scrolling hardware that allowed those systems to run arcade-style games so smoothly. It wasn't until Commander Keen (circa 1990) that PC systems were capable of doing these sorts of games justice (and then just barely) and the videocard you used in such a system would cost significantly more than an entire NES/SNES console. Of course there are other systems like the Amiga (my first two systems were a C64 and then later an Amiga 500) and the Atari ST that did have more game-friendly hardware but they were also nowhere close in terms of price range to the consoles and while more game-friendly than PCs still never quite achieved the pure tilemap-scrolling bliss of the dedicated consoles. Of course, after the explosion of 3D graphics with the Rendition and the original Voodoo, PCs took off in terms of raw gaming power and have left console systems in the dust since, but it wasn't always that way.