/vr/ - Retro Games

Probably not too much. The Saturn would have just taken its place.

>>1707912
Funny thing is, back in early 1996 I bought a Saturn instead of a PSX exactly because I was expecting it to become another 3DO, even though I liked the PSX more.

>>1707926
I doubt that
Saturn would've trailed far far behind the N64 still
but the dreamcast on the other hand would have been a different story

Sega would still be making hardware.

>>1707912

I wonder what titles would have happened if Nintendo had gone ahead with the SNES CD.

>>1707945
Games like Final Fantasy VII would have had to make their own home on Saturn. N64 would still have those cartridges.

Not having to make games for both PSX and Saturn would probably also mean that Saturn versions would have proper effort put into them, making them shine even on that convoluted hardware.

>>1707945
I think the real winner here would've been the N64. Saturn's story would've not changed much, maybe not even Dreamcast's story would've been much different since the market would be wary of Sega's previous failures. So the 2000s hardware market would've been pretty much Nintendo x Microsoft.

That's only conjecture though since both the Saturn and maybe even the N64 would've probably been a lot different had the PSX never existed. Saturn would've focused on 2D graphics (considering its 3D capabilities were a last minute addition to counter the Playstation), and maybe Nintendo would've followed, maybe even by keeping the SNES alive longer with a CD addon rather than releasing a new console.

Couldn't Nintendo have designed a CD console that uses a format that's "not Sony's CD"? Kinda like how the Wii U uses a "not Blu Ray" system? I mean Nintendo was still a very large and powerful company, maybe they could've had the Yakuza sabotage some PS1 shipments or something.

>>1707912
>Would the video game industry have been different if the PS1 was never made?
Yes. Nintendo would be better off. Since the PS1 came about because of nintendo.
Sony were making the CD drive for nintendo. Nintendo decided to be cheap and go with Philips in the end.

>>1707963
>be wary of Sega's previous failures
Sega only had one true failure before Saturn and that was 32X. It's the Saturn's failure in the West which hurt their reputation more than anything.

>>1707963
>previous failures
You mean like the Virtual Boy, SNES CD, and all those great CD-i Mario and Zelda games?

>>1707958
Most likely a similair library to the PC Engine CD; traditional games but larger, with redbook soundtracks and voice acting. Some western developers might have gone for FMV, but I doubt that would be the focus after seeing how it failed for Sega.

It's unknown if the SNES CD would have included a hardware upgrade as well, though. If it would have included a significant upgrade, there might have been more 3D games like Starfox.

>>1707912
>Would the video game industry have been different if the PS1 was never made?

Yes. 3D gaming would have been put back three years.

What you're forgetting is that most manufacturers were not looking far enough ahead. Most planned consoles before the PSX had half the power of the PSX and very crude 3D abilities being nothing more than a glorified hi-res SuperFX.

Sony's GPU changed the market immeasurably. The Saturn was redesigned late in the game because it was nowhere near enough to compete. This is why it's hard to program for -- they added extra chips to compensate.

Nintendo made the N64 the way they did because of the delay surrounding the SNES CD and rumours of the PSX's power. They went all out to avoid being left behind. The technical specs of the SNES CD have been leaked -- again, nothing even half of what PSX is.

If the PSX wasn't made then 3D would not have made that jump into mass-market viability. The PC -- with emerging 3D accelerators -- would have taken that lead and Nintendo would most likely have came out top.

>>1707912
By the time Saturn came out, SEGA had already burned a good portion of their third party developers. EA, Square and Konami would have repurposed their games for the N64.

We would have very different games. Metal Gear Solid might have ended up as a 2D adventure game or Final Fantasy VII as an action adventure.

SEGA would make a massive comeback with the Dreamcast as a big reason that console lost was because people were waiting for the PS2.

>>1707976
The only real failure is the Virtual Boy. The SNES CD never happened, and as such it couldn't "fail", and the CD-i Mario and Zelda games weren't made by Nintendo.

>>1707970
What actually happened is that Nintendo saw the reasonable success of the Sega CD and PC Engine CD. They wanted to have a piece of that pie as well, and they contacted Sony for help. Why Sony, because Nintendo already had a prior deal with Sony, the SNES' SPC-700. Everything was going so dandy and sweet, and Nintendo had no idea they were in for a treat; Sony's contract for the SNES CD demanded that all games produced for the console, including Nintendo's own games, have their distribution rights handed to Sony. Sony wanted to consume Nintendo since Sony was THE electronics giant, but Nintendo disagreed with the plans last minute and made a deal with Phillips. What actually pissed Sony off the most was Nintendo making a deal with Phillips, their rival at the time, not the sudden cancellation.

What's funny, Nintendo was better off working with Sharp, seeing as the designer of the NES and SNES was a former Sharp employee and their consoles using Sharp produced parts.

>>1708625
Sony wanted distribution rights? Really? Fuck, I thought it was just a case of Nintendo not wanting to give Sony royalty money for the right to use CDs. You know, much like how Nintendo refuses to pay licensing/roylaty fees in order to use commercial DVDs and Blu-ray Discs for Wii and Wii U games.

>>1708662
It was that too, but the distribution rights were a big thing. The N64 using cartridges and a proprietary disk format were Nintendo not wanting to pay royalties to Sony. The Mini-discs as well, as well as the Wii U's "not-Bluray" disks.

>>1708672
Right, and how you need to hack a Wii in order for it to play DVD movies. I'm kind of surprised Microsoft is willing to play ball with Sony over use of their formats.

Also,
>read about how Nintendo pissed off Sony by going with Phillips
>read about how Phillips and Sony are major competitors
>read later about how both Sony and Phillips had their hands in co-developing boith CDs and DVDs
>be somewhat confused

I'm guessing this sort of thing happens in the corporate world more often than I realise.

>>1707971
I was talking in relation to the Dreamcast, so yeah, Saturn and 32X - previous failures. Though many argue the Sega CD and Game Gear were failures as well.

>>1707976
Well >>1708124 already answered that for me. Besides, Virtual Boy was a very experimental thing and it was never meant to replace the Game Boy, so its failure didn't carry the same stigma as a flagship console.

Regardless of your opinions, it's the general consensus that "Sega's previous failures" are considered one of the main reasons for the Dreamcast flop.

>>1708696
>I'm kind of surprised Microsoft is willing to play ball with Sony over use of their formats.

To be fair, they're not game companies; they just dabbled with (and established a duopoly) in the video game market. Sony makes PCs using Windows, Microsoft makes consoles using Sony tech. They're actually much closer than you think; their whole charade of being rivals is like the "rivalry" between republicans and democrats. In fact, the video game market is a parallel to the presidential system.

>>1708116
Even if the PS1 and PS2 never existed I'm not sure about the Dreamcast. Sure maybe it would've gotten a few more games and lasted a little longer, but in the end I think many people would still ignore the Dreamcast and wait for the Gamecube and Xbox.

Though in these "what if" scenarios, I also wonder sometimes if the 3DO would have flopped the way it did if it wasn't for the PSX. Without the PSX around maybe it would have been successful enough to bring to market its sucessor, the M2. And the 6th gen could've been Nintendo x Microsoft x Panasonic/3DO Company. It would be an interesting scenario because if the 3DO platform actually had chances of beating other platforms we problably woudln't see EA titles on other consoles.

>>1708625
Philips and Sony disliked one another because of shit that went down in the 70s and the development of CD technology. They were in a race to be the first to create optical discs. I don't remember which one actually pulled it off first, but they each developed prototypes around the same time. The two later worked in tandem in order to standardise CD throughout the world.
Philips already had fat coffers from the invention of the audio cassette about 10 years earlier (they basically copied the American invention of the videocassette from a decade earlier still, made it smaller and omitted video capabilities) and Sony was already soured on the relationship, feeling that Philips was getting all the credit for CD when it really was about a 50/50 joint venture, so the collaboration ended.

Nintendo decided to be a shit starter in the 90s and, like an angry housewife fucking her husband's best friend/worst enemy to get back at him for leaving the toilet seat up, went off to ride Philips' dick and consequentially grew pregnant with Philips' bastard children.

Sony, having some measure of integrity, was all like "You know what? No." and kicked that bitch to the curb.

Nintendo carried those atrocities to term because abortion is bad and so, Hotel Mario and the infamous CD-i Zelda titles were born.

The odd thing is, shortly after Sony and Nintendo's breakup, Philips and Sony reconciled and together created DVD (1995, IIRC) ]. Philips then developed Blu Ray on their own in 1997 (yes: that early, believe it or not), then expanded on the invention with Sony's help in 2006.

It's odd how both Sony and Philips have expanded from their Quaker roots. Actually, I'm not sure Philips is Quaker-founded, but I think it is. I know for a fact that Sony was founded by a Quaker.

>>1708720
3DO could have never been successful. It's pricetag on its release ensure it. If adjusted for inflation, it would cost about $1000 in today's money, I think. Lemme check, gimme a sec.

>>1708736
$1150 today. Fuckin' hell, man. For that price, you could buy SNES, PS1 and Saturn as well as a few games for each console.

>>1708736
You're right, I forgot about the price issue. Though the 3DO had at least 2 major price cuts later in its life (the first only 6 months after launch), maybe with less competition these could have boosted sales enough - not to be a huge success but at least keep it alive.

When the Sega Saturn was launched in America, the 3DO already cost only 25% more than the Saturn launch price, though that's the official price - I'm sure most stores were selling it at the Saturn's price or less by that point. Though you could buy a SNES + Genesis + a lot of games, or maybe throw in a GB or GG too.

Nintendo would have had a much easier time competing only against a flagging Sega, and ROM cartridges would have likely remained the dominant physical medium in the fifth console generation.

Console games with lots of pre-recorded audio and video (e.g. Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Metal Gear) would not have been prevalent due to the limited storage on cartridges. The same goes for games with "mature" content in general.

It's also questionable if Nintendo's first- and second-party games would have been as good as they were without pressure from Sony.

Microsoft may have never entered the console market without a strong Sony to threaten its PC dominance.

>>1708802
The other consoles, however, were released as a bundle with some game or other. 3DO, IIRC, was not. And 3DO games were more costly. Not Neo Geo costly ($200 per game? tefuq?!) but definitely more expensive than Saturn or PSX.
3DO games were sold at like... Fingerhut SNES game prices ($110 each or so), IIRC.

>>1708825
>Not Neo Geo costly ($200 per game? tefuq?!)

If I recall correctly Arcade shops owners could buy Neo Geo and install them as cabinets(provided they did the proper woodwork), so when you think about it it's a great investment instead of buying $1000+ cabinets for each game in your arcade.

>>1708839
$200 for the game plus $700 for the console plus the cost of the cabinet = about $1000 per arcade game, either way. It's not like multiple cabinets can use a single console, you know.

I loved my Neo Geo mostly cuz I'm a shmup lover, but the games were damned expensive and difficult to find outside of shopping catalogs. Only a few brick and mortar stores carried them.

>>1708731
I just loved the way you described the whole situation. Underrated as fuck post.

If the PS1 failed we wouldn't have stopped dreaming.

You people are completely forgetting Europe.
No PSX=SEGA wins by having 80% market share in Europe since in real life Sony took over there thanks to awful planning and marketing by Nintendo resulting in no one having a N64, also PC gaming being huge in Europe and even more so in the late 90'(Starcraft, Diablo, Age of Empires, Half-Life everyone I knew played those).
My cousin did have a N64 but he also had a Saturn, a Neo Geo and some cabinets in his garage so he doesn't count, lucky rich bastard.

>>1708839
Neo Geo AES and MVS carts have different pinouts specifically so this wouldn't work. MVS carts were a hell of a lot more than the $200 home games. All of them were ludicrously expensive because the games had 5 different ROM buses in each cartridge, totaling around 80 bits wide.

>>1708805
>It's also questionable if Nintendo's first- and second-party games would have been as good as they were without pressure from Sony.

No, what changed is that Nintendo cranked their game production up to 11 to compensate for the lack of third party support. In the NES and even SNES days, Nintendo's games were few and far between, which gave third parties a chance of success. In reality they were fighting for second place, but they had some interesting methods of boosting sales; discounts on future games, a club subscription, rebates, and other merchandise, which Nintendo IIRC didn't really do.

>>1708852
>I loved my Neo Geo mostly cuz I'm a shmup lover, but the games were damned expensive and difficult to find outside of shopping catalogs. Only a few brick and mortar stores carried them.


What good shmups does the Neo Geo has?
I don't buy into Alpha Mission, Last Resort is good, and... what else?

The Metal Slug games, as well as Top Hunter are not shoot-em-ups.

Anybody who claims for one fucking second that Nintendo was right for pulling the plug on the SNES "Play Station" CD ROM is a fucking brainwashed projecting Nintendrone and that's a goddamn fact.

Nintendo wanted to be able to do their tired old "seal of quality" lockout chip bullshit to artificially get their pound of flesh just like they'd been doing all along. They thought Sony was going to steal their racket with their completely reasonable real-world business plan and cut and run like the bullies they were.

This truth is self evident through the lens of history.

Just look at how Nintendo stubbornly refused to used any of Sony's technology for GENERATIONS after so they could continue playing their weird Nintendo "quality control" games, extorting their third party right out the door and strangling their library down to first and limited second party titles, inevitably becoming the little kid on the playground they are today.

Sony, by comparison, professed no control and actually made it super easy for small developers to create games on the cheap Net Yaroze AND distribute their games since Sony could do the entire process using their already existing enormous CD pressing factories, bringing us way MORE games way LESS expensively than ever before.

Just because Nintendo makes kids games doesn't make them the good guys. Accept it. It's like Disney.

>>1707912
http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Ohga_Shrugs

Oy, I need help remembering a PS1 game. All I remember is shooting mechanical spiders in a safety room. Also driving a motorcycle.

>>1708942
I do believe nintendo pulling out on sony was a right move, but going to panasonic was retarded.

I understand not wanting your IPs being handled by 3rd parties but why do it with panasonic and give them no support?

I think if they got with sony it would of been worse because we would have less variety in consoles, but nintendo was retarded to first, fuck sony out of the blue, go with panasonic, out source their IPs and givr no support.

>>1707971
>Sega only had one true failure before Saturn and that was 32X.

Sega CD, Game Gear, Master System, SC-1000, SC-1000 II, Mark 3, Activator controller, SVP chip...

>>1708071
>The Saturn was redesigned late in the game because it was nowhere near enough to compete. This is why it's hard to program for -- they added extra chips to compensate.

They didn't "add extra chips", they just changed the main cpu from a NEC V60 to the dual SH2, and tucked on some extra RAM. With the V60 the Saturn would've been a SNES +1. The graphics chips were all unchanged, and most likely everything else as well.

Plus they were advertising the Saturn to run Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA as early as 1993, which I think would've been totally impossible with just a V60.

>>1708974
It was fucking childish reactionary shit is what it was. Sega and Nintendo as companies both acted like spoiled little kids and that's what let grown up real ass companies like Sony and Microsoft come in and crush them.

>>1707912
less cinematic bullshit... though it was probably inevitable anyway

>>1708987
It's probably because of the Japanese culture and mentality of "SHAMEFUR DISPRAY" that still was very prevalent in Japanese corporations at that time

>>1708987
Sony had a CD pressing business already because of Sony Music and later Sony/BMG. That alone was a killer feature for PlayStation. Nintendo took 2 months to get you a minimum of 100,000 N64 carts. Sony could stamp you a hundred discs by the weekend.

>>1708987
Nintendo was too arrogant, and for a reason, since they had complete control over the market in Japan. It was unthinkable for them, that another company could outplay them in the industry they invented themselves.

Sega just died due to infighting. They committed suicide.

Sony had an incredible worldwide infrastructure already in place and a LOT of resources to back the machine with - large enough that they could make things easy on the developers, who then all flocked to them. Plus the first Playstation was incredibly well designed (PS2 and 3 were nightmares).

The PS1s success was really a story of how all the stars on the sky aligned right. It stormed the market at a time when the opposition was at its weakest, managed to charm every part of the market from developer to manufacturing to ads to worldwide support, and they got the hardware so right that it aligned perfect with the direction the industry was going on.

>>1707958
Well, we already know that Secret of Mana was only half-finished when it was released because it was originally made for the CD add-on and they had to cut a shitton of content to make it fit on a cart. The lower cost and risk of making and distributing CDs vs carts also means Seiken Densetsu 3 might have actually been released outside of Japan.

>>1708965

OH WOW. Someone actually DID this? Amazing, thanks anon. I'll read it later.

>>1708965
>those game lineups
>Nintendo home consoles actually seeing third party support
>Sega still exists

>>1708975

>Sega CD, Game Gear, Master System, SC-1000, SC-1000 II, Mark 3, Activator controller, SVP chip...

Are you kidding me? Game Gear was no gameboy but was by no means a failure, and the master system is the NES of Europe.

I wish it were possible for someone to port FF7 to the N64

>>1708805

Wasn't Tomb Raider originally a Saturn or Jaguar title?

>>1708975

Those were not failures

>>1708975
>Sega CD
Underage AVGN watcher detected. The Sega CD held a profitable niche in the market.
>Game Gear
Wasn't the mega success of Game Boy, but still did pretty damn good.
>Master System
Maybe if you think America is the whole world. This console made mincemeat of the NES in Europe, Brazil and Australia.
>SC-1000, SC-1000 II, Mark 3
Too early to count. Nintendo also released a bunch of bizzaro machines in the pre-NES days that didn't sell too well.
>Activator controller
This is a fucking accessory.
>SVP chip
Sega killed the SVP chip with the 32X. It didn't naturally fail. The 16bit version of Virtua Racing sold plenty of copies.

>>1708731
10/10 post, bro.

>>1708942
>bringing us way MORE games way LESS expensively

Woah woah, hold on my negro. Games were cheaper to produce, but that didn't really translate to the retail price.

>>1710152
Not him, but wasn't the average price of PS1 games like $30-40 while the N64's was $60-70?

>>1710301
UK got screwed over if that's the case.
The Platinum range would equate to $30-$35, but new games still had a normal RRP equal to around $50-$60.

>>1710484
In reality $1 = £1 when we add in the getting screwed factor.

But it's true that PSX games were notably cheaper in the day. This was when the PC market was cheap (before crappy console ports to PC took over), you could expect to pay £20 for a game. The PSP had new games being launched at £20 to £35. N64 games would go as high as £60 (Conker's, for example).

Source: I bought a crapton of PSX games at the time, the market was buzzing with releases and prices were reasonable compared to the cheaper PC market.

What would've happened is that Nintendo would be pulling off the same shady business practices that Sony, MS, and every third party is doing right now. But as it stands, Nintendo hasn't been relevant in the home console market since the very day the PS1 existed, and will never be relevant ever again due to the lack of critical third party IPs like MGS or GTA. The Wii U might be the best deal for a next gen console for the average buyer, but the PS4 and Xbone will be better since they will get the aforementioned games, sooner or later.

>>1707926
Saturn didn't fail because of Sony, it failed because of someone that USED to work at Sony and then joined SEGA, which is a different issue. Saturn was pretty much on par with the PS1 in Japan.

>>1711842
Actually the Saturn was DESTROYING in Japan. It wasn't until FF7 when the PS1 took over, but the N64 was still dead last.

>>1711876
That's actually really cool. Remember when games actually mattered in promoting a console, instead of the specs?

>>1710301
Well that's a slight exaggeration but it's very fair to say that nearly all Playstation games fell in the price range of $30-$50 while N64 games nearly all were $50-$70 so the most expensive Playstation games were the same price as the least expensive N64 games and the selection was an order of magnitude greater.

>>1711842
Bernie Stolar is the guy you're thinking of. And the Saturn was doing quite well in Japan, not so much in the US. Had Sega USA not been as mismanaged and actually had their head on right, the Saturn would've buried the 64 like it did in Japan. The PS1 would've destroyed regardless, but the Saturn could've been in second.

>>1711973
Bernie Stolar just got put in there to nail SoA's coffin shut after SoJ forced Tom Kalinske out for the unforgiveable sin of being an awesome white businessman.

>>1711976
Just think, Stolar could've still been with Sony. If he was never kicked out of Sony USA, the PS1 would've probably bombed. He prohibited the release of any game that "looked worse than the competition", and seeing as how the PS1 has very few games that outshine N64 games graphically, the PS1 would've been stuck in a rut; MGS would've become the PS1's Panzer Dragoon.

>>1711886
They still do. Heck, the only reason Specs are such a huge deal this generation is that Nintendo and Microsoft added gimmicks that made it hard to compete with the more-powerful PS4's price. In a year or two, people will stop mentioning it as much and focus on games again, like they did last gen.

>>1711976

Speaking of Tom.

http://youtu.be/tA-SUVeR0Z4

>>1711842
>Saturn didn't fail because of Sony, it failed because of someone that USED to work at Sony and then joined SEGA

Holy shit, do delusional Saturn owners still believe this?

>>1712341
I don't know, the only place where N64 remotely succeded was North America, take a guess.

All of the cool games that were released on the PSX that made it popular would have gone to Sega Saturn, as the N64's cartridges were an obsolete medium to use for modern 3D games. But because the market would have less competition, Nintendo would have done a bit better than it did and would have been even more arrogant with its retarded GameCube, which is 'how to ruin a giant company in 1 year' 101.

The following generation would be Dreamcast vs. Xbox, with Dreamcast losing due to massive piracy. Maybe Sony enters the market at this time, but it would be difficult to gain a foothold as Sega would have still been going strong.

>>1712319
Yeah I already listened to that. You can really tell that he was personally hurt by the 32x having been denied support from SoJ so much that he speculates the same thing is what fucked Dreamcast even though it totally wasn't. Awesome guy though.

>>1711985
Stolar is really just a scapegoat. SoJ were the ones who made all those terrible decisions about the Saturn library in the US, Stolar just did what he was told without pitching the huge fit Kalinske had been.

>>1712971
Nah, Sega and Microsoft were buddies. It would have been the Sega Xbox manufactured by Microsoft versus the Nintendo Playstation and it would have been a glorious rivalry that netted us the kind of awesome games we got back in Gen 3.

>>1707912
The more I think about this question, the more I think that the story couldn't have happened any other way.

You had Sega who thought that 3D gaming was a gimmick, so the Saturn was made to run 2D games. Beautiful 2D games, but 2D games nonetheless.

You had Nintendo who wanted to maintain a stranglehold on software and licensing, so they stuck with the cartridge format in the N64. Plus, they were taking their sweet time releasing the darn thing -- it didn't hit shelves until 1996.

The market was ripe for someone to use a cheap mass storage media (CDs) and a massive game library to push video games into 3D, and that's what Sony did with the Playstation. If it wasn't Sony, someone would have.

The real travesty is that instead of learning its lesson from N64, Nintendo went the *other way* with the GameCube. There were enough quality 1st party titles that Nintendo could have regained the throne had they played ball and released a DVD capable system that was friendly to 3rd party developers; instead they opted for a cheap proprietary format and making games for 4-year-olds.

The cheap Wii and gimmicky controls let Nintendo make a comeback by stealing casuals' money... after 2 months, no other games, limited online capability, and no way to play any other media, the thing then collects dust on the shelf.

>>1712971
>GameCube [...] is 'how to ruin a giant company in 1 year' 101

Even if the GameCube sold even less than the N64, I think the initial damage done by the N64 was irrecoverable.

>>1713602
>making games for 4-year-olds

That's funny since the N64 had THE most kiddy games of any console (games about bears, lego, mickey mouse, Mario and friends doing menial tasks, Pokemon, and even Elmo games), and around 9 M-rated games. Turok 1-2-3, Turok Rage Wars, Doom 64, Forsaken 64, Resident Evil 2, Shadowman, and Conker. The GameCube is a widely hated console, but the N64 is seemingly free from faults.

>>1710143
>Underage AVGN watcher detected. The Sega CD held a profitable niche in the market.

Not underage. I even have a full boxed Mega CDII right here.
The Mega CD was poorly built and expensive. They made the second model not just because of cosmetics, but because of how poor the first model was (the model 1 launch was postponed because the drive literally caught on fire). It also had a fractured release (some places got model 1 but already advertised the model 2), and had shit games outside a handful of exclusives (Keio Flying Squadron).

It had some mild niche success pretty much only in North America.

>Wasn't the mega success of Game Boy, but still did pretty damn good.

It sold less than 1/10th of the Gameboy, ate batteries like pacman ate dots, and was unreliable due to leaking caps. The only good thing coming out of it were the Judge Dredd ads.

>Maybe if you think America is the whole world. This console made mincemeat of the NES in Europe, Brazil and Australia.

It was successful in Europe because Nintendo had fuck-all market presence there, in Brazil because it was a low-end machine sold for peanuts up till 2010 (not unlike how Famiclones outsold other consoles in eastern europe), and in Australia for the same reason as Europe.
In the markets that mattered -Japan and North America- the Master System was a complete and total failure.

>Too early to count. Nintendo also released a bunch of bizzaro machines in the pre-NES days that didn't sell too well.

SG-1000 was released in Japan on the SAME DAY as the Famicom. In what way is that "too early to count"?

>This is a fucking accessory.

It is literally a Kinect tier accessory except they realized that it was useless and cut production as soon as it came out.

>Sega killed the SVP chip with the 32X. It didn't naturally fail. The 16bit version of Virtua Racing sold plenty of copies.

Excuses. It doesn't matter why it failed: it failed. Especially when it was replaced with what ended up as a huge flop.

>>1711842
>Saturn didn't fail because of Sony, it failed because of someone that USED to work at Sony and then joined SEGA, which is a different issue. Saturn was pretty much on par with the PS1 in Japan.

It failed because Sega of Japan wanted to run the show solo, and they sidelined the guy who made their entire console section profitable for the first time ever (Kalinske).

Stolar was just a yes-man for SOJ. He was a scapegoat, and he even made up for most of that by pricing the DC 05$ lower than what SOJ wanted (which lead to the most successful console launch up to that date, and then getting fired by Sega).

The Saturn WAS a killer in Japan for a long time - shitload of arcade ports, Virtua Fighter 2, Sakura Taisen, Evangelion product placement, perfect Capcom ports, and also tons of VNs. It was the only time Sega ever beat Nintendo in Japan. Too bad it also meant failing completely everywhere else and then going bankrupt.

If Sony had never entered the console market, MS probably would not have either, because MS only entered it to thwart Sony's plans of taking over the living room. So we'd still be playing on Nintendo and Sega systems, and console games (arcade games, platformers, fighting games) would be king on consoles and PC games (CoD, Halo, Battlefield) would be played on PCs, just like the good old days, and just the way they were meant to be played with a mouse and keyboard.

The dumbing down of gaming would not be as dramati as it is now. Since only hardcore video game nerds would be buying PC games, the casualization of those games would never have happened, because doing so would piss off the only people who buy those games. And the console games wouldn't have become so kiddied because there would still be a lot of adult gamers buying them who couldn't afford a gaming PC, and thus game developers would make their games more appealing to those folks.

Basically, everything would be awesome.

>>1713939
I would argue that the success of Goldeneye on N64 is what opened the door for developers to pursue the large scale FPS market on consoles.

>>1713670
> Judges target audience simply by game ratings

Have you played any of Nintendo's games on the GCN? Besides Metroid Prime, they all take a step backward in simplicity in order to appeal to a younger market. It's plainly obvious. You don't need to make an M rated game to target a more mature audience, just produce a game that is challenging and deep enough for teenagers and adults to enjoy it.

But that's not the nail in the coffin; the nail in the coffin was proprietary format that didn't play DVDs like the competition -- at a time when the format was relatively new and people wanted an all-in-one player -- while also making it difficult for 3rd party game companies to make software for the system.

Additionally, the N64, while making several mistakes, still produced some ground breaking stuff for the time. You know how you play every game on an analog stick now? You know how controllers have rumble features? You know that 3D Z-targeting system that is widely used? You know how all consoles come with 4-player compatibility now? All of that came from Nintendo.

Nintendo could have come back with the next gen, similar to the PS4 overcoming the PS3's faults -- it did enough fresh things in the N64 generation to have a shot at reclaiming the title. Nintendo just needed to adopt to current tech and say 'hey guys, sorry about being a bastard, come make games for us. We'll be number 1 with our list of quality first party games, too!'

>>1714007
>I would argue that the success of Goldeneye on N64 is what opened the door for developers to pursue the large scale FPS market on consoles.

The success of Halo had more to do with that than Goldeneye. Although Goldeneye is an FPS, it still plays like a console game with its arcade-like qualities; it has an emphasis on replayability much like an arcade game with its multiple difficulty settings each adding their own objectives, and also time trials, whereas Halo was very much western PC style with an emphasis on story or atmosphere.

Halo proved that you didn't need to make a good game to have success on the consoles, you just needed good graphics and a big marketing budget, and that's what led to PC developers flocking to consoles.

>>1714083
The original Xbox was way behind the the PS2 in sales. I don't think that Halo carried the genre the way that you think it did. Not only that, you needed to hook the Xbox into a PC and use a 3rd party software program to even play Halo in multiplayer with more than 2 people.

Goldeneye proved that FPS could actually be done on consoles with analog stick controllers. Without Goldeneye's popularity, MS doesn't enter the market with Halo as its flagship software title.

>>1714098
>you needed to hook the Xbox into a PC and use a 3rd party software program to even play Halo in multiplayer with more than 2 people.
What?

>>1714098
>you needed to hook the Xbox into a PC and use a 3rd party software program to even play Halo in multiplayer with more than 2 people
Or this crazy sci-fi device called a "hub". Also you mean more than 2 consoles. You could play 4 players per console.

>>1714113
Sorry it was 4, not 2. But if you wanted to play over the internet like civilized PC players had been doing with FPS since the 1990s, you had to go through Gamespy.

Dunno how many people carried those things to someone's house, but no one I know could be bothered with that shit.

>>1714098
>Without Goldeneye's popularity, MS doesn't enter the market with Halo as its flagship software title.

Then what would they have entered the market with, if not an FPS? A generic western developed 3d platformer like Gex? That would've been suicide, and MS knew it. An FPS was chosen because the genre was hot shit at the time and because the power of the consoles were now at a point where they could run smoothly with enough detail that would attract the console gamer's eye.

>>1714007
>Nintendo could have come back with the next gen

That will never happen for one major reason. The lack of big name third party games like GTA or MGS. The Xbox One and PS4 will be carried exclusively by these games, and with the Wii U not having any of those games, instead getting some random one-offs, very few will consider getting a Wii U as their major platform. For as long as Nintendo still makes home consoles, Nintendo will never be seen as "the main" console like the NES or SNES. Nintendo was exiled into their own little corner of the market.

>>1714083
Funnily enough, I think it comes as a big surprise to most people that Goldeneye 007 actually outsold Halo Combat Evolved by a considerable margin.

Turok (and to a lesser extent Powerslave/Exhumed) I suppose was the proof that FPS could work on console. Goldeneye was the indisputable proof that FPS multiplayer could work on console, not Halo.

Hell, Halo for Xbox might not have even come with multiplayer if Goldeneye hadn't done it first.

>>1713602
That isn't really true.
Nintendo consoles last 5 years, and Wii sold a ridiculous ammount of consoles for 4 years, from November 2006 to Xmas 2010. A bigger problem than the motion controls gimmick is how underpowered it was. Consoles need to be powerful in order to last 7 or 8 years like 360 or Playstation 3 (and they are still 20 million units behind the Wii)

>>1713670
you are forgetting the biggest hit of the Console, Goldeneye (Perfect Dark sold well too). Best selling game after Mario 64 which was bundled.
Nintendo probably bought Rare more to damage Nintendo than to benefit itself, N64 was the first person shooter console.

>>1714167
I mean, Microsoft bought Rare more interested in harming Nintendo than in benefitting fro Rare.

>>1714007
>Besides Metroid Prime, they all take a step backward in simplicity in order to appeal to a younger market. It's plainly obvious.
I agree with this.

>But that's not the nail in the coffin; the nail in the coffin was proprietary format that didn't play DVDs like the competition
I don't agree with this. The DVD playing feature on consoles was already obsolete by 2002 when you could pick up a standalone player for $30 that did it better.

The DVD playing capability is a bit of a scapegoat I find. And if not that, people actually argue that the storage limitation of mini-DVDs is why the Gamecube failed. Really!? I can understand why an N64 couldn't have a second cartridge ($10), but including a second mini-DVD is like an extra 50c. Besides most of that space was just used for FMV even in that generation

>Nintendo could have come back with the next gen,
I think it's pretty clear that Nintendo will never get third party support back. The large publishers are literally in bed with Microsoft and Sony. They don't like how Nintendo doesn't listen to them. When EA and Activision tell Sony and Microsoft to jump, they reply "How high?". When EA and Activision tell Nintendo to jump, Nintendo ignores them.

EA and Activision like feeling in control. Nintendo doesn't give them that feeling. If you doubt me, the whole Xbone DRM fiasco last year was only caused by Microsoft listening to the publishers like a dog obeys a master.

>>1714139
I don't think that MS enters the market at all. I think that MS pounced on the fact that Nintendo essentially took all the risk and did a proof of concept for console FPS; once the game was popular the market was ripe for MS to jump in and heavily push a genre that was previously only played on really expensive gaming PCs.

>>1714141
That 'next gen' I was talking about was the GCN/PS2/Xbox gen, not the current 'next gen.'

>>1714182
> The DVD playing capability is a bit of a scapegoat I find. And if not that, people actually argue that the storage limitation of mini-DVDs is why the Gamecube failed. Really!? I can understand why an N64 couldn't have a second cartridge ($10), but including a second mini-DVD is like an extra 50c. Besides most of that space was just used for FMV even in that generation...

The PS2 was released in 2000, several years before those 'better' DVD players were released. The format was new enough that most people didn't have one and an all-in-one player was a selling point for the PS2.

As for the storage limitation, yea there's a strong marketing perception that those mini-disks meant that the GCN was significantly less capable than the PS2. It was, but not because of mini-disks.

>>1714167
The motion controller was not a problem with the Wii. The problem was, as you say, how underpowered it was which caused a lack of 3rd party support. It also lacked a viable online multiplayer in a console generation where online multiplayer was a big selling point.

Because of the relatively cheap price, it successfully marketed itself to adults who grew up with NES and hadn't played vidya since. But everyone, and I mean everyone, I know who has bought a Wii stopped using it within 6 months once Wii Fit and Wii Sports got old. There just aren't many good games on it, and if those people were really interested in vidya they would have bought an Xbox 360 or PS3 anyway.

One thing I will say is that a Wii is the best console complement to a PC gamer, as it's the only console that will give you access to good exclusive titles that can't be had on the PC.

>>1714228
>a Wii is the best console complement to a PC gamer

You do know the Wii can be emulated by most gaming PCs, right?

>>1714237
it wasn't for a quite a while there
plus it's much easier to slap a sd card and USB drive on a WII for perfectly working games than going through the hassle of Dolphin

>>1714217
>The PS2 was released in 2000, several years before those 'better' DVD players were released. The format was new enough that most people didn't have one and an all-in-one player was a selling point for the PS2.
I don't disagree that it was a selling point for the PS2 in the first year, but by the time the Gamecube and Xbox came around, I can't see it as having been that important.

> It was, but not because of mini-disks.
It's the other way around, GCN was more capable than PS2.

>>1714228
>The problem was, as you say, how underpowered it was which caused a lack of 3rd party support

This isn't true. The Gamecube wasn't underpowered and it didn't get third party support either. If a developer is determined to get a game working on old hardware, they will. All the Modern Warfare games got ports on the original Wii without issue.

"da wii is underpowered" is just an excuse used by third parties so they can develop "test" games instead

>>1714228
Nintendo's post-SNES consoles are all about their first party games, which are stellar.

In this gen, all three main companies are going to do bad. For MS and Sony, blockbusters are the selling bread/butter combo. To make a blockbuster means not taking risks or innovating. It means having to spend $50,000,000 on a title's development and not risking it flopping by not deviating from previous tried and true pizza toppings.
Hence, Assassin's Creed 27, Call of Duty 54.5: Black Delta SEALS Patrol, various GTA clones, and basically anything else with boring casual shooting mechanics that appeal to 13yo boys and their online jerkoff-mates.

The industry is headed for another collapse, this one caused by too much money and not enough fun.
Either that, or mediocrity will reign supreme.

Good time to be into retro games IMO.

Bringing PC gaming to consoles has killed both. Online servers, DLC/expansions, and whatnot were never meant for the typical person to have access to. They're too consumerist and not caring enough.

>>1714262
> It's the other way around, GCN was more capable than PS2.

Yea, I had to look that up and it turns out you're right. Do you think I'm the only one with that perception? Nintendo did a poor job at showcasing the GCN's power, in no small part because even though you think it was no big deal to release two-disk games, companies would compress content to fit on one.

> This isn't true. The Gamecube wasn't underpowered and it didn't get third party support either. If a developer is determined to get a game working on old hardware, they will. All the Modern Warfare games got ports on the original Wii without issue.

Now you're jumping around.

The Wii *was* under-powered compared to its competition. However, it was released at a time when only a minority of households owned an HDTV (about 25-30%). Nintendo was correct to release a cheaper, non-HD capable gaming console and then convert to HD at a later time. If you were playing the Wii vs. Xbox 360 vs. PS3 on a CRT or 720p flat screen, you wouldn't notice the difference.

Again, no 3rd party support and no online multiplayer meant Wii sat on the shelf, even though it was the top selling console. Why do you think the Wii U isn't selling? Nintendo already bled the soccer mom Wii Fit market dry.

>>1714267
> n this gen, all three main companies are going to do bad. For MS and Sony, blockbusters are the selling bread/butter combo. To make a blockbuster means not taking risks or innovating. It means having to spend $50,000,000 on a title's development and not risking it flopping by not deviating from previous tried and true pizza toppings.
Hence, Assassin's Creed 27, Call of Duty 54.5: Black Delta SEALS Patrol, various GTA clones, and basically anything else with boring casual shooting mechanics that appeal to 13yo boys and their online jerkoff-mates.

You've just described video games since the PS2 vs. Xbox generation. All those FMV sequences, motion acting, voice acting, etc drives up production costs, and neither Sony nor MS are friendly to developers who want to produce games that don't showcase the true power of each console.

For every 5 AAA titles released, 4 will be sequels and one will be something new. The companies simply can't afford to take risks with games of that scope, and Sony/MS won't let them produce a beautifully rendered 2D or even 3D game with 50-100 hours of content and no fancy movies/acting to go with it.

>>1714327
P.S.: The Playstation 4 is outpacing all previous Playstations in sales. Sony did a lot right with that system: online multiplayer, perfect price point, right amount of power, good launch library.

So much for your sky-is-falling prediction.

>>1714262
>"da wii is underpowered" is just an excuse used by third parties so they can develop "test" games instead

Except when the big companies that hold the "in demand" franchises like Square, Rockstar, and Konami are involved. Best case scenario is MGS5. It will be coming to all current platforms but the Wii U. But here's the thing: It's the second best selling "next gen console", and the Wii U is more powerful than the PS3 and 360, at least on paper. There is no excuse for the game not to show up on the Wii U, except for Kojima's zealotry to Sony and his fascination with American companies like MS. Konami's a big company, it's not like it's a huge gamble that will kill them.

Twin Snakes and Snake Eater 3D sold like shit because they were remakes of old games. Not just any old games, they were remakes of some of the most popular and most sold games of all time. Literally everyone and their mother has bought MGS and MGS3, and everyone has played each at least three times by the time their respective remakes came out. No one was going to buy a GameCube for a game they already played 6 years prior, a non-canon retelling at that, and no one was going to buy a full priced port of an 8 year old game when the Vita also had it, as well as MGS2 on top.

>>1714182

Badmouth Activision all you want, but they still support Nintendo consoles through rough and dirt. They're obviously making a profit since they have never complained about it. The PS3 was the only console they ever complained about, since the sales of the console were so poor and the attach rate was ridiculous. The fact that people buy games that are already oversaturated on Nintendo consoles with no sign of them stopping is a testament to Activision's low expectations.

>>1714340
I don't really care what the system is selling.
It's the games themselves that are in jeopardy. The PS4 is a laughably gimped PC gaming platform, the Bone even more so.
They aren't making games that are really games. More like interactive movies.
GTA:V is a good example. Absolute trash compared to GTA:SA

Retro games, and there's countless to choose from, are a much better investment than modern games. They still feel like games.

So like I said, we'll either see a crash, or a constant state of mediocrity.

There won't really be another legendary Zelda or Metroid.
Street fighters games, KOF, and other fighters will never be as good. Metal Gear is dead.

It's a shame too, because the systems finally have amazing power, but just can't produce the love. Not to anyone looking for more than just something to sit down and get fat with after a long day in 7th grade.

>>1707912
Not sure about the PS1, but without the PS2 there's a decent chance SEGA would still be in the console business.

>>1714228
>One thing I will say is that a Wii is the best console complement to a PC gamer

HAhah. Nope.

>>1714379
You're talking out of your ass. You have no idea what game developers will conjure up in the next 5 years, yet you're already declaring that the game libary will be 'dead.'

As far as 'laughably gimped PC gaming platforms,' gaming PCs cost a lot more than $500, and they only have a shelf-life of about 2 years before you have to spend another $500 on the next flagship GPU.

That doesn't include time/hassle spent debugging.

I was a PC gamer circa 2003-2007. Biggest mistake I ever made financially. I could've bought a PS2 and PS3 at launch and still spent less money.

>>1714343
I'm not quite sure what your point is.

I will say that even if AAA PS3/Xbox 360 titles were released on Wii 6 months later, it's a disadvantage to Nintendo. By then, everyone will have moved on. Also, Nintendo lacked a viable online multiplayer. Everyone keeps glossing over how monumental of a mistake that was...moreso than the lack of HD capability.

>>1714581
>Nintendo lacked a viable online multiplayer.
I keep hearing this without a reason why
worked just fine for millions

>>1714578
My GTX285 is still capable of playing modern games, where as the PS3 is clearly showing its age.

Better yet, my PC can emulate retro in a snap.

Modern gaming is dying, sadly. Especially on consoles. There just isn't any real place to go anymore.
I fully expect casualware on smartphones to take over from consoles this gen.
GTA: Rehash and COD: Modern Recycling, not to mention Assassin's Creed 78554776: We've Done This Before, just aren't going to be attractive to the actual gaming community.

I for one am glad ebay, Amazon, and emulation exist.

>>1714581
>I'm not quite sure what your point is.

Are you seriously telling me that I spent time typing up a post, only to have someone tell me "what are you talking about"? Why don't you read it again and see if it makes sense? At least have the common fucking courtesy to just post the bait fish image, at least that means I shouldn't expect serious discussion.

>>1714581
Protip: Online multiplayer and online gaming are part of what's killing the gaming industry.

We've basically took a fun toy medium and turned it into facebook by now.

Nintendo's probably the last real vidya hardware maker left.
The rest are glorified NSA spy machines that sell mountain dew ads and charge $400+ dollars for $150 hardware to play rehashes.
These days it seems it's more about selling DLC and Hulu than games.

Well this thread went to shit.

>>1714723
I blame the internet.

>>1714736

Nintendo was the last stand against EA and their shit games. People recognized the superior japanese games and bought them. That's why EA always hated Nintendo
Once sony entered the market, it was the perfect opportunity for EA to become the leader of the industry and kill Japan

>>1714936
>once sony entered the market
>kill japan
>sony is a japanese company

>>1714937
Yeah sure sony players buy a lot of japanese games...

>>1714939
Uh, in Japan they do.

>>1714939
I almost buy Japanese games exclusively for my Sony platforms.

>>1714939
>sony players buy a lot of japanese games...

Why should I buy western games for a sony console when 90% are multiplat? The good exclusives are always moongames

>>1714939
That's the fucking reason I have a PS1/2/3.

Shmups and JRPGs.

>>1714941
>>1714943
>>1714949
>>1714951
>muh personal case

Since the very beginning the playstation project was created to be a trojan horse for the western developers in the console market. They always supported more their western devs. Look how they marketed Crash, Spyro, Syphon Filter and made trilogy of these franchises on ps1 compared to Ape Escape, Tombi and Legend of Dragoon
And they made it. They helped EA to be the leader of the market. Look what are the most sold games on ps3 and vita. All western shit. The weaboos niggers on this site are not representative of the sony audience.

>>1714998
>Get told
>M...muh personal case
>They helped EA to be the leader of the market.
>They always supported more their western devs
>Most successful game was FFVII
>Using mainstream western titles against niche eastern titles

Confirmed to be fucking delusional, go back to /v/.

>>1714717
>Protip: Online multiplayer and online gaming are part of what's killing the gaming industry.

You sound incredibly pretentious and self righteous, not to mention wrong.
Quake online wasn't facebook shit, and so weren't Unreal Tournament, Halo 2 or Phantasy Star Online.

Stop thinking the only worthwhile competition is competing scores in SHMUPS and fighting your friends in Street Fighter.

>>1713850
>in Brazil because it was a low-end machine sold for peanuts up till 2010
Brazilian here, actually the reason is because TecToy did a great job on it and for the first time ever we had a decent support for a console and gaming. When it was released NES and Master System costed pretty much the same. But for once TecToy managed to bring all the games, offered assistance for brazilian games (spawning several crappy wonderboy clones, sure, but still) and effectively resolved any technical problems. That was a first for brazil and to be honest that reminds pretty much unrivaled till today. Of course they sold them cheap as peanuts after the 16bit generation, but when NES and Master System fought for the market, they costed the same. Also the Master System had Ayrton Senna GP. Hues love dem some Ayrton Senna.

FF7 would still be playable today

>>1715005
>get told

By what? 4 post from fanboys? Look at this. The playstation audience in the real world. You didn't realize you helped sony to destroy the japanese industry you moron

>>1715042

Everyone who loves car "sports" love Senna, if anything because he was great at what he did and how he did it.
The way he died is only because his car fucked him.

>>1715069
oh god that image brought tears to my eyes
fuck you anon my life will never be complete now just kill me

>>1714578
>they only have a shelf-life of about 2 years before you have to spend another $500 on the next flagship GPU.

Just like the other anon you replied to, I'm still on a GTX 285 I bought 5 years ago - almost as long as a console generation. By now it's showing its age, but still plays most new games fine - not on maximum settings but still better graphics and with better framerates than 7th gen consoles.

I agree that being a PC gamer in the late 90s and early 2000s bordered on masochism, unless you were a richfag. A top of the line GPU, 2 years later wouldn't get acceptable framerates on new games even at lowest settings and substandard resolutions.

But it isn't 2003 anymore, get with the times. A flagship GPU can last up to 5 years these days.

>>1708731
>It's odd how both Sony and Philips have expanded from their Quaker roots. Actually, I'm not sure Philips is Quaker-founded, but I think it is. I know for a fact that Sony was founded by a Quaker.
Is this a euphemism? I find it hard to believe there's anyone of the quaker religion in japan.

>>1715005
delusional is thinking Playstation isn't the european and south america fifa cod gta machine.

>>1715921
I've just wiki'd these quaker guys. Seemed like a cool bunch, apparently some Japanese quaker guy got himself in a 5000 yen bill.

>>1712971
>with Dreamcast losing due to massive piracy
That's why no one makes money in the PC market right? Why do these same lame arguments keep popping up, reminds me of the guy who claimed the PSP 'bombed' (it didn't) because it was a piracy machine instead of a game system.

>>1715985
>That's why no one makes money in the PC market right?

The stupid people (along with the moralfags such as myself) abound the PC platform in kind of the same measure of the 'smart' guys pirating every release.

This would kill the console, especially if it was sold at a loss, like most do.

>>1715705
Everyone has a different definition of 'runs fine.' When Doom 3 was released and my Radeon 9800 pro could only hack it at 25 fps on low settings in some scenes, people would defend that as 'running fine.' I disagree.

Do you obtain a minimum of 60 fps with at least medium settings on new games? If the answer is no, then your games don't 'run fine' in my book.

Also, people like to harp on the GPU as if buying more RAM, a faster processor/motherboard, competitive mouse, bigger PSU, sound card and speakers, and a case with more robust cooling in order to play 3D games is nothing. Considering nowadays most people use $300-600 laptops for personal productivity work anyway, you can also add monitor, keyboard, and mouse to that cost because many people don't have that equipment.

The PS4 cost $400. If I were going to buy a comparable desktop gaming computer and build it myself, it would cost me nearly a grand if I did some serious bargain shopping. That's not counting the monitor, since I also didn't include the cost of a TV.

>>1715985
Uh, you're ignoring the fact that now almost all mainstream FPS are released on consoles and PC, and often the PC version will be a port of the console. That and online multiplayer are the only reasons AAA PC games still exist on a wide scale.

The Dreamcast didn't have online multiplayer, so there was no reason to purchase its games.

>>1715095
Don't really care what nationality a gaming company is, as long as it produces a quality product.

Sony didn't kill the Japanese game developer market, the developers making bad games that didn't have widespread appeal to people outside of Japan did that.

>>1716157
>The Dreamcast didn't have online multiplayer
All of my goddamn wat.

Dreamcast didnt collapse because of pirating because most of us didnt even know about this shit untill 2003 or so.

Anyway Dreamcasts true end comes from Peter Moore firing everyone and misjudging the market. When the Xbox got announced SEGA thought that they were simply finished. PS2,Gamecube and Xbox no way they can hold their line against that. Now in retrospective the gamecube sold terribly vanilla Xbox would have been even more of a joke without its Dreamcast ports/canceled titles.

>>1714939
Jesus, did you really just type that

>>1716170
>hurr durr most o'us din't know 'bout no piratin' till too fowzin' free
lolno

Everyone I knew who was into games, and I mean literally everyone, knew about piracy well before 2000 let alone 2003. Most of us ran our first emulators in 1997 or so and many of us had chipped or otherwise modded PSX consoles as early as 1995, soon after the first PSes were available outside of grolious Nippon.

I guess if you were like... eight years old in 2003, I could see not knowing about it.

Shit, I knew people that had pirated multicarts for SNES, SMD/Genesis, GB and NES in the late 80s/earlier 90s!

>>1716220

Don't copy that floppy!

Gaming would be in a better place.

>>1716170
Sega sure did misjudge the market. In an effort to be first to the 6th gen market (and to make up for the Saturn's flop), Sega introduced the DC a year ahead of PS2 and blew its load too early. Once the PS2 was released, that was all she wrote for Sega.

Also, despite strong NA sales the DC lost over $400 million in first quarter 2000. Turns out that the Japanese market is important, too, and they couldn't produce enough units to meet NA/European demand.

>>1715921

Google it.
Founder of Sony was a legit Quaker.
There are even japanese rabbi anon, don't be surprised.

>>1715921
Not at all a euphemism.
Though few today (due to pressure from the Japanese government before, during and immediately after the second world war), there are Quakers in Japan.

>>1716368
I know Taito was founded by a Jew but I don't think there are any ethnically Japanese rabbi, are there? I know a few years ago, the first Japanese Muslim made his hajj to Mecca. While /mostly/ Shinto/Buddhist, Japan has a few other religious groups, too.

>>1716220
Argentine here
Everybody emulated pokemon in 1998, there were people selling the rom in diskettes
All the people who bought Playstation one had mainly pirate games. Piracy is rampant here (latin america) and nobody cares about patent laws.

>>1716568
Same person
I have been playing Civilization since Civ 1 in the mid 90s, and Pokemon since 1998.
I did it for free for more than a decade. First time I gave money to Civilization was 2010 through Steam, and first time I payed for Pokemon was last year.
I think there is less piracy nowadays than in the late 90s or early 2000s.

>>1716530
Technically Taito was founded by a Russian Jew, despite being a Japanese company. Ironically enough, they never lived up to the Heeb tradition. I guess Russian Jews are the least fortunate compared to the German and Israeli Jews.

>>1716170
>Dreamcast didnt collapse because of pirating because most of us didnt even know about this shit untill 2003 or so.

You wot m8. I can assure you there were ROMs of Pokemon Green on the net in 1996. I was even playing a half-fan-translated copy of Pokemon Silver months before it hit the English world.

Captcha: daterpa 1908

>>1715985
>Why do these same lame arguments keep popping up,

This. Let's see here

Dreamcast failed because of piracy
Dreamcast failed because no DVD

Gamecube failed because mini discs
Gamecube failed because it looked like a purple lunchbox
Gamecube failed because no online multiplayer

Saturn failed because of Bernie Stolar

HOW ABOUT THESE CONSOLES FAILED BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T HAVE GAMES THE AVERAGE JOE WAS INTERESTED IN HUH?

WHY DO PEOPLE NEVER MENTION THE FUCKING GAMES?

>>1716771
>You wot m8. I can assure you there were ROMs of Pokemon Green on the net in 1996. I was even playing a half-fan-translated copy of Pokemon Silver months before it hit the English world.
I can back this up. Also in 1998-99 I was playing games I'd never heard of on the NES like Rygar, Mario's Time Machine and GI Joe.

>>1716801
pirating was as easy as searching for "pokemon blue rom emulator download" in yahoo or altavista and downloading it from some geocities page.

>>1716162
>>1716787

Yeah it's pretty sad to see a bunch of kids talking like they know why this console or that console "failed"

Dreamcast sold great, much better than the Wii U. SEGA was just running out of the massive amount of money needed to be both a console manufacturer and game dev and decided to pull the plug on it.

>>1714687
>COD: Modern Recycling

Okay, that was funny.

>>1716568
I can confirm this.
I was 7 years old and a friend had a SEGA CD. Not the console, mind you, but a CD with nearly half the console's library and a very much stable and well working copy of Genecyst.
1997.
Genesis wasn't even officially dead yet.

>>1716787
Because the games the DC had were actually wonderful. That's why.

>>1707912
Sony was a revolutionary company at the time. They actively sought out new IPs, allowed publishers to make what they wanted, didn't edit shit for "stupid americans" (like Nintendo did and occasionally still does) and they created a developer friendly environment in general. Not to mention that the PS1 had twice as many games as the Saturn and N64 combined and three times as many good games as well.

We would not have 90% of the greatest games of the 90's without Sony (at least not in their current form) and the industry wouldn't have been as great as it was in the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox era. Not to mention that if Nintendo had lead the pack, cartridges may well have still been in use to this day.

On top of that, major franchises like Resident Evil wouldn't have been made without Sony. They went to Capcom and asked for an action adventure game. Capcom in turn agreed and gave the job to Shinji Mikami who'd previously only worked on Disney games for the Gameboy. The rest is history.

You may not be a fan of Sony, or the kind of influence they had, but the industry would have been totally different if it hadn't been for them.

The present state of the industry rests on Microsoft's shoulders though. They swooped in, marketed to non-gamers and bros and then everything slowly went to total shit. IF the PS3 had been more popular out of the game, we'd have had more of a continuation of the PS2 era (judging from early PS3 games and launch titles)

The industry may just benefit if Sony pulls ahead again this gen, but it may be too late now that they've basically adopted M$' tactics.

>>1716820
> Sold well

Not well enough. The DC sold great in 1/2 the markets that Sega wanted it to sell in. It got crushed in Japan and cost Sega $400 million in a quarter. A quarter.

FWIW, I was the originator on the piracy comment and I made it in context of the 'what if Sony never made a game console' scenario.

In reality, piracy didn't bring the end of the DC, it was a poor rep from Sega dropping support on previous generations' expensive consoles prematurely and PS2's upcoming strong game library that killed sales.

> SEGA was just running out of the massive amount of money needed to be both a console manufacturer and game dev and decided to pull the plug on it.

One thing that Nintendo has consistently done well is actually make a profit off of each game console sold. Other companies sell them at a loss and intend to recoup it through software sales. That is one of the reasons the Wii wasn't HD-DVD/Blu-Ray capable: Nintendo couldn't have made a profit on a $300 console back then if it had those specs.

>>1716826
>Because the games the DC had were actually wonderful. That's why.

Wonderful, yes. But niche. Niche as fuck. Of no interest to casual players. While it's nice to think of a console that doesn't cater to casual at all, there has never been one like that which financially succeeded.

>>1716820
Yeah that's why Nintendo had to quit right? And why Microsoft and Sony don't develop games.

Shit went wrong. Largely the PS2 blowing up but the rampant piracy didn't help. Lord knows I was amazed at how simple it ended up being and how soon after the US release.

>>1716151
In your previous post you say that delving into PC gaming was the biggest mistake you ever made. Yet now you claim that anything below 60 fps at medium settings is not really acceptable.

How can you stand playing on consoles then? Most games run at 30 fps and have graphics on par with low or medium settings on the PC version.

That's a claim only hardcore PC gamers usually make. You're a funny guy.

>>1716830
Eh, I disagree.

Without PSX, 5th gen console war would be Nintendo pitching 3D platformers and 1st party titles vs. Sega pitching classic arcade action and sports games. Saturn did 3D, but not nearly as well as the PSX or N64. Developers would be caught between a rock and a hard place deciding whether to put games on N64's limited and expensive cartridges or Saturn's complicated arcitecture. This generation would essentially be a replay of the Genesis vs. SNES, with the winner being determined by who could court EA, Square, Konami, and Activision (probably Sega).

I do agree that the 5th gen loses out on a lot of the great 3D game franchises that have its roots on the PSX. Because of the limited storage space of cartridges paired with Nintendo's content-controlling philosophy, and processing power needed to do 3D on Saturn, you'd get gimped versions of the type of games that were released if they were made at all.

Assuming Sony still stays out of the console wars past then and no one else steps up to make a developer-friendly 3D gaming console before 2000, the 6th gen would be Sega fully adopting a 3D console in Dreamcast vs. the Gamecube. I think that Sega courts more of the 'mature' audience (it had always done so) while Nintendo sticks to its 'play cartoonish games for fun' pitch. As such, Sega gets all of the 3rd party photo-realistic games and dominates the generation, and the proliferation of game franchises seen on the PSX occurs on the Dreamcast instead.

The 6th gen becomes about Sega pitching to hardcore gamers, Nintendo pitching a cheap casual console. Microsoft may or may not have ever entered the market, but if it had it would be crushed by Sega at this point, assuming Sega doesn't go full retard and release a console with a $700 MSRP.

>>1716830
>>1716874 cont'd

As for Sony's PS3 and the way forward, the PS3 was simply too expensive to be popular and Xbox live offers a more user-friendly online experience, albeit at a price. The PS3 actually had some good exclusives and I think that now that the PS4 is reclaiming Sony's title as king of the heap, you're going to see a lot more variety on this generation than "Cinematic Military FPS # 900" and "Hiding behind chest-high walls #300."

>>1716830
>We would not have 90% of the greatest games of the 90's without Sony
Holy shit, it's like PC, SNES, Genesis, Saturn, N64 and Dreamcast don't exist.

>>1716849
1) I don't play FPS on consoles. Can't stand the controls.

2) Framerate on TV is different than framerate on computer monitors.

3) If you're playing a game on low-ish settings, you might as well have bought the console and saved the extra money.

4) I said it was a big mistake financially. There were some good games I got into that can't be played on consoles, but eventually I got to a point in my life that it's not worth, on average, $800 every 2 (or apparently 4 now, but I'm still skeptical of that claim) for a machine capable of playing them (every 2nd video card upgrade would also require a motherboard/processor/ram/PSU upgrade). I also find it a lot more comfortable to sit on my couch and play on a 50" tv.

>>1716887
1) I understand. Anyways, I think it's worth mentioning that Doom 3 played just like your Radeon 9800 on the Xbox port (30 fps with drops to 25 fps, graphics similar to low settings on PC). And if you didn't get into PC gaming is the version you would probably play.

2) No it isn't.Especially when playing computer games on TVs and console games on monitors is getting more and more common. If you're talking about old analog TVs maybe it is, though I have my doubts. But modern HDTVs and monitors are basically the same thing. Maybe you're confusing framerate with refresh rate?

3) You're not getting it... I thought we were talking about a 5-year old old GPU that ran games a lot better than consoles in its prime years and now can still run new games with graphics and framerates similar to the consoles. It already paid for itself a long time ago.

It's obvious that if we were talking about a brand new and more expensive GPU that doesn't perform better than the consoles, then yes, your argument would be valid.

4) I understand, only this claim as an argument in favor of consoles
>I also find it a lot more comfortable to sit on my couch and play on a 50" tv.

You know these days you can easily have this setup with a computer too, don't you? Even for fps games, you can use a wireless keyboard and mouse standing over your lap on a portable bed-breakfast table.

>>1716887
Also, since you asked before, I'll give you an idea on how my 5-year old GPU performance with new games - though I already hinted that in most cases it doesn't perform worse than old-gen consoles.

I've recently played the new Thief game on that machine, a game designed with next gen in mind. It runs at a stable 30 fps with most settings on medium and a few on low. Not perfect but it still looks better and has a more stable framerate than the 7th gen versions.

Metal Gear Rising runs at 60 fps with all settings maxed out.

However, the GTX 285 struggles and really shows its age on Frostbite engine games. On these it's hard to get 30 fps even on lowest settings. They're the only games that remind me that my GPU is already pretty old, though I blame that on shit optimization on the DirectX engine as the engine runs well on the PS3 and X360.

Now I think it's already time to upgrade, but I'm waiting for the first new generation of GPUs from Nvidia/ATI to be released after the new gen consoles. Hope it lasts me at least 4 more years.

>>1716949
>tfw PC gaming has been nerfed as publishers focus on consoles
>t also fw console gaming is less fun and interesting as gimped PC games become the status quo on consoles

I want 1998 back.

>>1716830

You know, Sony people are acting the same exact way as the Nintendo people did back in the day. Nintendo dethroned Atari (well they dethroned themselves), Nintendo was dethroned by Sony, Sony was dethroned by Microsoft. Or at least, MS finally managed to catch up to Sony, when their first console didn't do well at all. Soon, MS fans will be in the same boat as Sony fans. Mark my words.

>>1707912
My memory of this time is a bit vague, so if there are any historical accuracies, please correct me.

I can only guess that developers saw an opportunity with the Playstation that they didn't see with Nintendo's consoles. There were more unique titles for the Playstation you couldn't find on the other ones, probably because their was new technology to experiment with. I wanted so bad to have a Playstation that I cared less and less about my N64. The same for the PS2. They had so many popular titles. Gamecube had...you know, the 1st party usual and ports of Dreamcast games, and the Dreamcast had a bunch of arcade stuff mostly. Sure, certain games like Grandia 2 ran worse on their ports than they did on the Dreamcast, but they were there, so why buy a Dreamcast? It didn't make sense, so I never asked for one. As for the Saturn, I forgot that even existed until a few years ago.

When I think of Sony, I think more multimedia and technological advancement than I do video games. Even with their consoles now I still feel the same. I didn't feel that way about Nintendo (in particular, whereas Sega seemed to show interest). It seemed like Nintendo was doing the bare minimum and didn't care so much about the advancement as much as they did selling 1st party titles and having control. They seemed arrogant to be honest. If Sony didn't jump in, I think I'd give up gaming, because Nintendo and Sega might not have tried knowing they had control and would always win in that market.

>>1716936
1) You keep harping on FPS. I have played plenty of non-FPS games that were released on the PS3 up through 2013 that ran at constant 60 fps.

3) See 1: not all console games have 30 fps, and see below your next post: if developers were making games for modern PC architecture instead of console ports, you wouldn't get 60 fps out of that video card for more than a year or two.

4) You could do that in the dark ages of 2005 also. The reason I don't is I would have to do one of the following:

> Place desktop near TV, whereupon it becomes an over-priced console.
> Physically move the desktop between my desk and my TV area
> Place my desk, which is in a separate office room, next to my TV in my living room where it doesn't even fit.

>>1716949
This is more a testament that developers have mostly given up on developing games for the PC first and instead make games for consoles and port them to the PC.

So, you just paid twice the amount of money to play the same games with slightly better graphics. You're not making a good argument why PC gaming is a cost-effective alternative to consoles by pointing out that the graphics in the software has stagnated to stay on par with 7 year old consoles.

>>1717050
>You keep harping on FPS

Huh? But it was you who started this by mentioning Doom 3, and in the following post kept going by explaining why you don't play FPS on consoles. I just went along. At least that's the way I see it. Just drop the subject then.

>not all console games have 30 fps

And where did I say or imply that? I said that most of them do, keyword here being MOST. most <> all.

> if developers were making games for modern PC architecture instead of console ports, you wouldn't get 60 fps out of that video card for more than a year or two.

I know that. Though I think that besides the usual "console games are nerfing PC gaming" theory, there are other reasons that also come into play - such as Moore's Law not being valid anymore and increasing production costs.

But that's not the point of our conversation, remember? The point was you refusing to realize that GPUs need to be upgraded much less often these days - the reasons for this didn't really matter,

I was just trying to point a fflaw in your argument and pointing that PC gaming is a lot more cost-effective than in the past - if that's good enough for you or not, it's up to you. You already have your opinion set in stone that the PC can't be a cost effective platform and nothing anyone says will ever change that - I understand that since your first post and it's okay, but please use valid arguments.

>>1717179
> And where did I say or imply that? I said that most of them do, keyword here being MOST. most <> all.

I don't know where you get the idea that *most* games run at 30 fps or less on consoles. They pretty much all run at 60 fps fairly consistently on my PS3. One of the biggest framerate offenders I own on the PS4 is MGS4 actually, which was made when the hardware was still new. Games being released 5-7 years in PS3's life played at constant 60 fps, unless you're talking about CoD/Battlefield/whatever. I haven't played those games on consoles so I can't speak to their performance.

> But that's not the point of our conversation, remember? The point was you refusing to realize that GPUs need to be upgraded much less often these days - the reasons for this didn't really matter...

The point of the conversation was that you harped on my original comment that PC gaming was not a cost-effective way to enjoy modern games.

If you say that developers have offered more friendly graphics scaling options or have slowed down development for games from a 'top down' philosophy, who am I to argue? I haven't been playing PC games since I bought my PS3 in early 2009 for $400 with my 50" plasma, and I chose the PS3 because it was cheaper than buying an Xbox 360 + Blu-Ray player.

>>1717216 cont'd
However, even if you only had to upgrade your PC every 4 years vice 2 as in the mid 2000s (depending on your tolerance for lower fps or settings), you're spending a lot more to game on the PC. The PS3's ridiculous launch price notwithstanding, you're talking about spending about $400-500 for a game console that is guaranteed to last at least 5 years, vs. a grand to build a gaming desktop + incremental GPU upgrades that cost as much as a new console. And again, since no one uses desktop PCs unless they are gaming or doing design work that requires the power of an advanced GPU, if I were to get into PC gaming again today I would also have to purchase a new LCD monitor to go with it -- another $300-500 (yes, there are cheaper options but they will have excessive motion blur).

All told, if I were to decide to opt for PC gaming vice a PS4 for this next generation, I would have to spend $1000 minimum to beat the power of the PS4 because unlike what many PC gaming advocates would like people to believe, there's more to purchase than just a GPU to build a gaming desktop... just so that games could look a little prettier and I could play the stale FPS genre and some RTS games with a keyboard + mouse.

Or I could just spend $400 on a PS4 and be comfortable with the fact that I can enjoy modern games that work for at least 5 years, and also enjoy other genres of game that are more suited for an analog controller.

>>1709081
>Nintendo had complete control over the market in Japan
>Saturn was second place to the PSX, even taking 1st place a couple of times during the Saturn's lifespan (though ultimately dying due to the Dreamcast)
u dum

>>1717227 cont'd
Finally, before you or anyone tries to argue that I'm ignoring the HDTV cost, that HDTV is a purchase I would have made anyway in 2009, as I enjoy watching sports and movies on a big screen. Also, one could have obtained an HDTV at the time for under $500, just like desktop monitors.

Just like I would also have to buy a laptop to bring to/from work and use to surf the web on my couch in addition to the desktop computer.

The desktop's only real function would be gaming, and multi-functionality of desktop PCs was one of the biggest arguments for going that route.

>>1717032
Sort of.

The PSX was released ahead of the N64. It was competing with the SNES and the Saturn; the latter was difficult for developers to work with.

So big 3rd party game developers could either:

A) Jump ship to Sony who offered a cheap, easy development platform and was competing against last-gen tech

B) Wait for the N64 to hit shelves a year and a half later and deal with Nintendo's controlling bullshit along with higher development costs and increased royalties.

C) Spend increased resources on learning to develop for the Saturn

It's not hard to see why Sony won here. It wasn't so much a new experimental technology, it was that, as you say, Nintendo and Sega were used to being top-dogs and thought that they could control the big publishers. All Sony (and if not Sony, another company) had to do was offer a powerful 3D console, relatively cheap production costs, and be willing to let developers/publishers have creative autonomy.

>>1717257
>It wasn't so much a new experimental technology, it was that, as you say, Nintendo and Sega were used to being top-dogs and thought that they could control the big publishers. All Sony (and if not Sony, another company) had to do was offer a powerful 3D console, relatively cheap production costs, and be willing to let developers/publishers have creative autonomy.

Oh, okay. And I guess from that is where the library full of interesting titles for the PS1 comes in, because they had that freedom. I just know when I saw all of the titles for the PS1, I thought "why don't I ever see this shit on Nintendo's stuff?". The Saturn doesn't really have a place in my memory. I've never even seen one in person.

>>1714936
>EA and their shit games.
But they were awesome before Sony entered the market, arguably at their peak.

>>1717227
>And again, since no one uses desktop PCs unless they are gaming or doing design work that requires the power of an advanced GPU
That's patently nonsense I still use my desktop for most of my computer needs.

>>1717257
This is very much the reason why Naughty Dog developed Crash Bandicoot for the PS1 instead of the N64. Granted, they were screwed on the dev unit, but it paid off for them in the end.

http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-bandicoot-part-1/

>>1717535
The N64 launched with the dream team philosophy. Since they were unknowns at the time it's doubtful Nintendo would have even sent them dev kit.

>>1717518
The 'no one' part was hyperbole, but non-commercial use desktop sales are way down and they are not a good platform for productivity work in lieu of quality laptops that can be obtained for sub-$500. If you're using a desktop for productivity work at home and you're not in 3D graphics design, it's simply because you're either being stubborn by ignoring the advantages that laptops can offer in terms of portability and convenience, you don't have a job that requires computer use at all, or you ran out of money by spending it on a gaming PC.

>>1717595
Which I do remember being Nintendo's sales pitch at the time - quality over quantity.

The thing is, even if there are a higher % of PSX games I wouldn't have cared to play, there were also more smash hits in the process.

>>1714254
I disagree. Dolphin is so straightforward: certainly more so than walking to the shop to buy a console (or even ordering online and then having to arrange delivery).

>>1717050
>Place desktop near TV, whereupon it becomes an over-priced console.
>Physically move the desktop between my desk and my TV area
>Place my desk, which is in a separate office room, next to my TV in my living room where it doesn't even fit.
There are always ways around physically moving hardware. Leave your desktop in your office, and stream to your TV.

>>1717227
>and also enjoy other genres of game that are more suited for an analog controller.
I feel like I'm being antagonisingly patronising by saying this, because I'm sure everyone knows, but you can use modern games controllers with PC.

>>1715705
5 years thats fucking nothing

>>1716936
>portable bed-breakfast table
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!.webm

>>1716998
>Nintendo dethroned Atari
moar like deepthroated
amirite guise?

>>1714007
>You know how you play every game on an analog stick now? You know how controllers have rumble features? You know that 3D Z-targeting system that is widely used? You know how all consoles come with 4-player compatibility now? All of that came from Sega.

FTFY

>>1716887
>>1717050
>>1717227
>>1717241
>>1718152

>>1720448
Not with a plasma TV manufactured in 2008. It only has wired input. I'm not going to drop another $1500+ just to get wireless streaming on a tv when my current one works perfectly fine and has better image quality than LEDs that cost twice as much.

>>1720448
>It only has wired input.
It doesn't have to be wireless.
>I'm not going to drop another $1500+ just to get wireless streaming on a tv when my current one works perfectly fine and has better image quality than LEDs that cost twice as much.
Woah, no-one asked you to do anything like that.

>>1720818
To me and most of the civilized world, when someone says 'streaming' it means wireless.

I'm not running dozens of feet of HDMI cable just to 'workaround' playing games on a PC when a console will do the job, at less cost.

There are other advantages to consoles too, like actually being able to play games with people I know in real life instead of just neets over the internet.

>>1720889
>To me and most of the civilized world, when someone says 'streaming' it means wireless.
You and most of the civilized world are wrong.

>>1708625
>Everything was going so dandy and sweet, and Nintendo had no idea they were in for a treat;
I'm guessing someone here has been playing Saints Row 4 for too much time!

>>1720889
>There are other advantages to consoles too, like actually being able to play games with people I know in real life instead of just neets over the internet.

I doubt there are people in real life who would want to spend time playing video games with you if this thread is anything to go by

>>1721072
5 star post.

> Points out that gaming on PC is more expensive than consoles.
> Must have no friends lolol!

>>1721093
There's no point arguing with you, you really are an autist. You miss the point of every single reply you get - including that one.

>>1721102
This whole thread is autistic as fuck. arguing/discussing a hypothetical topic about videogames. Come the fuck on. sageing because this thread is shit

>>1721102

> I'm a PC pundit who gets offended when anyone points out I've spent double the amount of money to play the same games with slightly better graphics, so I'm just going to call you stupid names instead.

>>1721127
Thanks for proving my point.

I don't know how this thread devolved into a mustard race conversation but I'll contribute by saying the upgrade cycle is exactly why I was a console gamer my whole life.

Not at all retro: But NOW that modern consoles are basically just straight up PC style hardware with the "bonus" of hard DRM, pretty much the opposite is true

>>1721146
> Implying you ever had one

>>1707912
More people would have saw Half Life and Star Craft in 98 and been like "wow...we should just PCs"

Not sure if this is the right thread to say it, but I remember people on /v/ actually saying that the N64 actually had a chance against the PS1.