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/vr/ - Retro Games

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8152889 No.8152889 [Reply] [Original]

Genuine question here, why did consoles sell better than computers in the retro era? Sure consoles had marginally lower upfront cost, but computers had a lot more titles and they were all much more affordable. Now computer haters on this board might argue that console games had better quality. Sure, that's debatable, but shouldn't we compare console vs computers then and now? Ever since the mid 2000s or so, PCs have been selling much better all around the world than consoles, and that's even more true if you take smartphones into the equation. Consoles are still cheaper than mid end PCs and high end phones, yet unlike in the retro era, the other two are now a lot more popular. What happened? Was there a phenomenon that changed the tide?

>> No.8152892

Yes

>> No.8152964

>>8152889
>Sure consoles had marginally lower upfront cost
>marginally
The NES at release at it's north american release in 1985 was $149.99, a macintosh of the previous year was $2495 and the commodore 64 was $595 at it's initial US release in 1982. That isn't a marginal difference in price. But what you're forgetting most is that the average consumer was not tech savy or interested in computers at the same time classic game consoles were on sale. PC's may have been starting to enter homes then but they weren't household staples until much later so although the price of a commodore 64 may have fallen to $149 by the same year the NES hit shelves the average parent buying for a child was much more likely to pick the toy that took no more effort to start up than putting a movie in a VCR than buy an actual computer.
>Was there a phenomenon that changed the tide?
Home computers became household items instead of novelties for the amusement of a nerdy dad.

>> No.8152967

>>8152889
>consoles had marginally lower upfront cost,
Except they hadn't. Also new computer components were out at the speed of new xiaomi phones today, costing arm and leg while you had to buy console once every few years and you were set. Optimization on PC was shit.

>> No.8152989

>>8152889
>consoles sell better than computers in the retro era
>Ever since the mid 2000s or so, PCs have been selling much better all around the world than consoles
zoom zoom

>> No.8153090

>>8152964
>and the commodore 64 was $595 at it's initial US release in 1982
"By early 1985 the C64's price was $149; with an estimated production cost of $35–50, its profitability was still within the industry-standard markup of two to three times."
C64 was probably cheaper than the NES without the tape deck and disk drive. And you're forgetting that the ZX Spectrum was more than half as much as that, and could use any normal tape deck.

>>8152967
By the time the SNES was released in 1990, the Amiga 500 was already out for 3 years, and it was $700 at launch. It was a complete package with a monitor and a disk drive. I couldn't find a catalogue, but the prices must've taken a nosedive by the time the NES was launched.
>costing arm and leg while you had to buy console once every few years and you were set
I'm not talking about IBM compatibles.

>>8152989
The NES sold hundreds of millions of units. The best selling 8 bit computer was C64, and they only sold 30 million units at most.

>> No.8153102

>>8153090
The NES sold 60 million units. C64 did 15 million. Go and be a zoomer somewhere else.

>> No.8153110

>>8153102
>The NES sold 60 million units
Not counting 1 billion chinese and taiwanese repros.

>> No.8153127

>>8152964
>the average consumer was not tech savy
>LOAD ""
>play tape
>game loaded
>stop tape
The average consumer must've been dumber than a bag of rocks.

>> No.8153131

>>8153090
>And you're forgetting that the ZX Spectrum
I'm not forgetting the ZX Spectrum I'm ignoring it because it wasn't released in America and Britain isn't important in a discussion of global PC vs console trends you tea drinking faggot
>>8153127
>The average consumer must've been dumber than a bag of rocks.
yes

>> No.8153140

>>8153131
>it wasn't released in America
It was, with little success. They already got Tandy CoCo 2, it was almost as much of a bargain.

>> No.8153236

>>8153140
>12 games released
>incompatible with 9/10ths of zx spectrum software without an emulator cartridge
in every way that matters there was never an american zx spectrum and timex should stick to watches

>> No.8153245

>>8153236
The spectrum was a success in Eastern Europe, Northern Europe, and South America. The Russians themselves built dozens of clones. Murrica isnt the center of gayming.

>> No.8153249

>>8153245
>Northern Europe
*Southern Europe
But I think it had decent sales in Finland too, good enough to warrant a clone.

>> No.8153254

>>8153245
>zx spectrum wasn’t released in america
>actually it was
>technically but it sucked so hard it effectively didn’t happen
>zx spectrum clones were popular in all kinds of places that aren’t america, america isn’t the center of the world
I hope your ESL brain can figure out why what you said is completely irrelevant to the conversation you replied to

>> No.8153282

>>8152889
NES and Master System could do some really fast games, home computers widely did not feature very fast games until like 1991 or 1992, where computers would start to surpass consoles.

>>8153131
>I'm not forgetting the ZX Spectrum I'm ignoring it because it wasn't released in America
It was, Americans just didn't want it because they had much better options.

>> No.8153291
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8153291

>>8153254
>>8153282
They didn't sell the ZX Spectrum in North America, at least not in its original form. They briefly had the TS 2068 which wasn't fully compatible with it. But actually the answer to OP's question is there just weren't any cheap 8-bit computers outside C64 after the early 80s. The NES's success was as much due to lack of competition than anything. If we'd had a whole bunch of home computers like Euros did with cheap copyable games (not $50 uncopyable cartridges) the story might be different. But we didn't, we just had expensive ugly brutalist PC compatibles that weren't user friendly or very good at action games like the NES offered.

>> No.8153297

>>8153245
>Murrica isnt the center of gayming.
That only happened after faggot acceptance took off sometime after 2012. The center of gaming however is a point equidistant from Japan and the continental United States because while your eurofag ass may not like it America is absolutely more important to gaming than Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Japan is our only equal.

>> No.8153298

>>8152889
>why did consoles sell better than computers in the retro era?
Because computers were expensive as FUCK, especially adjusting for inflation, and video games were pretty much exclusively seen as something for kids. Parents weren't gonna drop thousands of dollars for little Timmy's sweet gaming rig.

>> No.8153306

>>8153090
yes it was cheap although I think one issue with the C64 was that after the early 80s it didn't really have a lot of action games, North American devs just made stuff like Might and Magic and Bard's Tale that appealed to adult neckbeards. I suppose it might have helped if we'd done more action stuff like PAL guys did.

>> No.8153316

in Sweden NES was expensive and only rich fag could afford it. most parents buy C64 for their kid since it have cheap cassette game.

>> No.8153350

Actual NES sales were probably about 20 million worldwide, maybe 15 million not whatever bloated figure Nintendo made up for advertising purposes.

>> No.8153352

These are the sort of threads you get when your board becomes a hugbox.

>> No.8153365
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8153365

>>8153306
For the price of a small car you could have this hefty chunk of metal that can't really play action games (unless you count playing that shit DOS version of Contra at 15 fps) and is very spooky and intimidating to your blue collar dad. Even the more computer-y kinds of games it has like Defender of the Crown or Ultima aren't as good as they are on C64 which costs 1/4th the money.

No, PCs only become viable in late 90s when they're cheap enough and your dad realizes he can access unlimited adult entertainment on the Interwebz.

>> No.8153371

>>8153365
well my dad got his first computer an Atari 800 in the early 80s but he worked in IT. but a PC compatible was still far out of his price range.

>> No.8153407

>>8153316
Nä, det var den inte.

>> No.8153426

Here's a QRD on computer gaming based (and redpilled) on market trends.

1st gen - gaming was an exclusively western market, consoles only had very basic games that didn't even keep track of rules. Computer games were mostly text games.

2nd gen - still a western thing, by now the Japanese have started developing arcade machines which proved popular, and westerners made ports for consoles. Computers still had mostly text based games.

3rd gen - the Japanese start making their own consoles, and the Japanese who made arcade games started making games for these. Westerners typically made either games for computers, which started to resemble Japanese arcade games, or ported them to computers. A small number of western developers started making games for consoles, effectively the birth of western console games.

4th gen - Mega drive was released, but due to Nintendo's immense pressure on Japanese developers, Sega had to rely on western developers. Western game development was growing, but not as large as Japan's. Computers still got occasional ports and original games, a good number being ports of western console games.

5th gen - PlayStation is released, and Sony performs an industry first by buying several third party developers, most of whom being western. The first console to successfully balance Japanese and western software, though ironically was defined by western games more than Japanese. Windows 95 was released which made console conversions much easier than other formats, birthing the concept of 'straight console ports'. Western devs were releasing fewer and fewer games for computers, and what games computers got eventually got console versions. Why pay big money for a computer when a much cheaper console can play the game, at a similar fidelity no less?

Continued.

>> No.8153443

>>8153426
6th gen - Grand Theft Auto 3 was released, arguably the largest western game at this point in time. Microsoft was irritated by Sony encroaching on their gaming market so they released the Xbox. Like Sega a few generations ago, they had to rely on western developers to make games, most of which were ports of PS2 games, effectively birthing the modern multiplatform trend. Western developers were starting to fall out of PC gaming and sought to seek fortunes on console gaming. Then World of Warcraft was released. Gaming in this generation was mostly defined by western games, but Japanese games were still numerous.

NOT RETRO REEEE

7th gen - Xbox 360 was released a whole year before Sony's and Nintendo's machines. This gave Microsoft ample time to secure western developers and a few key franchises. The 360 was an easy to develop for machine and Microsoft had fewer restrictions on releasing games for other systems compared to Sony, so many games were 360 plus PC, with the occasional PS3 port. PS3 was a multi pronged failure - it was difficult to develop games for, and it sold poorly due to how few games it had, hence the infamous 'PS3 has no games' meme. Because of these conditions, Japanese developers were much more limited in what they could do. This birthed Japanese multiplatform releases, because many developers couldn't trust the PS3 alone, and due to its niche market, Japanese had to develop niche games for the system, chiefly vaguely lewd JRPGs. Few Japanese franchises stayed exclusive to the PS3 as a result. In an odd way, PS3 and 360 were the modern SNES and Genesis. For the first time in gaming's history, western gaming finally overtook Japanese gaming. Console gaming got worse while computer gaming only got better. It was in this generation where PC gaming started becoming viable again, thanks to the release of Steam.

8th gen onwards - who cares, just some gacha shit and an increasing focus on free to play games. Gaming has died.

>> No.8153532

lyl NES can't even do games half the time without massive slowdown and flicker

>> No.8153570

>>8153532
Better some occasional slowdown than being slow all the time.

>> No.8153627

>>8152889
The first video games I ever played were on computers. But /v*/ is full of poorfags and as such gives a good perspective on "how computers were seen" in that era (expensive and confusing), so that's why consoles did better.

>> No.8153645

>>8153443
>it sold poorly due to how few games it had, hence the infamous 'PS3 has no games' meme.
This actually stemmed from a reaction to people deriding the wii for only having wii sports, disregarding the wii for having no games. Both consoles had light libraries for their first year but they settled into place by the end of 07. The meme is kept alive by out of touch console warriors as the PS3 had one of the better libraries that generation.

>> No.8153710

>>8153110
You think you are so fucking funny?

>> No.8153763

>>8153645
That may be true, but it was a circle of events. A high price tag (how could I forget that?), low software output, and a small userbase meant that the ps3 took a long time to finally start to recover. Mgs4 was one of the first major games for the console, and invariably a turning point in the end. It did have a very rough start but it finally managed to catch up and surpass the 360; it's final game that wasn't a port of a newer console game was Persona 5 from 2017, not a bad run.

You could argue that Japanese software output rose again by 8th gen, now that they aren't scared of other platforms, (the kind of have to now because Sony doesn't want anything to do with Japanese games, the ones that carried the PS3 in its darkest hours) but many companies either went under or are in the process of going under. The ones that are left have unfortunately been bit by the gacha bug, so it's not really a win anymore.

>> No.8153873

>>8153365
unless your parents worked in IT or needed PC for work you were unlikely to have one back then. if your dad was construction worker or car mechanic definitely not.

>> No.8153894

>>8152889
>$5000 PC vs. $100 NES
>$300 laptop vs $500 PS5
Use common sense, dipshit.

>> No.8153901

>>8153894
NES was more like $200 and games were $40-$60 a piece.

>> No.8153913

>>8153291
Now I dunno what would happen if we had $99 Spectrum here in America but it would interesting to guess.

>> No.8153921

>>8153901
It was $100 by 1989, and games could be rented for $2 a week.

>> No.8153936

>>8153913
I wouldn't doubt a lot of cheap/poorfag parents wouldn't go for it. It was cheap and it played video games so good enough. Not like the average boomer parent was that informed on vidya anyway. Many of them were confused and upset that the SNES couldn't run NES games.

>> No.8153952

one thing I always liked about computer gaming was the scene/sense of community. you never have that with consoles they feel like anodyne consumer product for normies.

>> No.8153987

>>8153090
>The NES sold hundreds of millions of units.
lol, no
>I'm not talking about IBM compatibles.
Well, OP is talking about computers and consoles. And the only decade where consoles sold more than computers were the 70s.

>> No.8153991

>>8153365
>PCs only become viable in late 90s
zoom zoom

>> No.8154093

>>8153952
This.
also, computer games got millions of kids into programming.

>> No.8154109

>>8153426
>1st gen - gaming was an exclusively western market, consoles only had very basic games that didn't even keep track of rules. Computer games were mostly text games.
Wrong. Mainframe computer games from that era were more sophisticated than the games from the mid 80s and had full graphical interface.
>2nd gen - still a western thing, by now the Japanese have started developing arcade machines which proved popular, and westerners made ports for consoles. Computers still had mostly text based games.
Wrong. Apple II and Tandy CoCo were powerful enough to play arcade ports. Atari 400/800, and Commodore VIC-20 were doing arcade ports wonderfully, better than their console counterparts, and they even had games far beyond those of what consoles and arcade machines could offer. They're partly the reason why the video game crash happened, I think they played a big part.
>3rd gen - the Japanese start making their own consoles, and the Japanese who made arcade games started making games for these. Westerners typically made either games for computers, which started to resemble Japanese arcade games, or ported them to computers. A small number of western developers started making games for consoles, effectively the birth of western console games.
Computer games have "resembled" 3rd gen console games since the 2nd gen, and even gone beyond that. Also, in the same year the NES was released in the US, Atari ST and Amiga also made their debut, two 16 bit machines with 32 bit bus. Think about it.

>> No.8154125

>>8153952
>sense of community.
>you never have that with consoles
you just never found it

>> No.8154128

>>8154109
>Also, in the same year the NES was released in the US, Atari ST and Amiga also made their debut, two 16 bit machines with 32 bit bus. Think about it.
So where's the good games for those?

>> No.8154145

>>8154109
>Apple II and Tandy CoCo were powerful enough to play arcade ports

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e63PPjzpueE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9iSMmA5ynk

Do you really want to go there?

>> No.8154159

even in Japan most of PC gaming audience were adult shut-ins who play VNs and eroge shit

>> No.8154168

>>8154128
International Karate and Gauntlet were released on the ST that year, and dozens more.

>>8154145
>1988-1989 arcade games
I was referring to 70s-early 80s arcade games obviously. In that case, they ran most of them better than the 2600 and intellivision did.

>> No.8154180

>>8152889
Ease of access is a big one. You see modern gamers make this argument somewhat about how easy it is to "plug and play" with a console but that was absolutely the case back then. You put the cartridge in and it works or if it doesn't then your preferred method of fixing it was blowing into the cartridge like a moron and hoping for the best. There was no fucking around in DOS having to remember the command line prompts you needed to run the game. There wasn't a GUI at all and I personally remember needing "DOS for Dummies" as a kid to know how to do some basic things and I'm fairly certain I had some command line paths to favorite games written down too so I wouldn't forget.

This is why PC games were for "nerds", you had to invest more effort into playing them and it did a good job of gatekeeping people until Windows became more prevalent.That being said, even with Windows 3.0,I remember having to boot up DOS to run some games.

>> No.8154181

>>8154109
>Mainframe computer games from that era were more sophisticated than the games from the mid 80s
zoom zoom

>> No.8154182

>>8154168
>International Karate and Gauntlet were released on the ST that year
Not very impressed by those games to be frank. What else did it have?

>> No.8154187

>>8154182
>Not very impressed by those games to be frank.
zoom zoom

>> No.8154197

>>8154182
>Not very impressed by those games to be frank
The Amiga versions are better.

>> No.8154205

>>8154168
>they ran most of them better than the 2600 and intellivision did.
that's a bar so low you can step over it

>> No.8154228

then again the fucking VIC-20 had the intermission screens and the pie factory in Donkey Kong but the NES couldn't handle it

>> No.8154372

>>8154159
That has still remained the case; a lot of modern PC ports of Japanese games aren't for sale in Japan. Maybe some of the 'bigger' franchises like Yakuza or Final Fantasy, but other than that, nah. Plus it doesn't help that the PC versions are released at the same time as western versions *at best*, so I doubt the Japanese would want to rebuy a game they played a year or two prior. I don't think they fall for the double dipping tactic.

>> No.8154478

>>8152889
>Genuine question here, why did consoles sell better than computers in the retro era?
Computers were considered office machines, like a fancy typewriter or calculator. Consoles were like an arcade that you hook up to your TV, like a VCR. Some computers like COLECO Adam were basically modified game consoles but the console version was still cheaper. Macs had GUI but it wasn't until CDs that they were useful for gaming.

>What happened? Was there a phenomenon that changed the tide?
Multimedia and the Internet. Multimedia means computers could produce picture and sound like a TV or at least 256 colors instead of just text or monochrome or 4 or 16 color graphics. Internet turned computers into a communication device beyond phones and fax machines.

>> No.8154586

>>8154187
Millennial, actually.

>>8154197
Do those improve the gameplay any? I don't think just some nicer graphics and sound is a worthwhile improvement if the game itself is still just kind of middling and uninteresting. I'm certain there's better games on the Amiga and Atari ST than these. Where's the shit which can compare to...
>Super Mario Bros.
>Sonic
>Castlevania
>Streets Of Rage
>Splatterhouse
>Salamander
>Outrun
>Uninvited
>Shadowgate
>After Burner
>Megaman
>Gate Of Thunder
>Legend Of Zelda
>Ghouls N' Ghosts
>Contra
... ? There had to have been games like these on the Atari ST.

>> No.8154594

>>8154197
Including

The Last Samurai
Flashback
Worms Director's Cut
F18 Interceptor
Hunter
Hostages
Cannon Fodder 2
Miami Chase
Superfrog
Ports of Call
Harley Davidson
Chase HQ
Midnight Resistance
New Zealand Story
Super Hang On
Operation Thunderbolt
North & South
SWIV
Rick Dangerous
Batman
Technocop

>> No.8154624

the main thing consoles had were sprite and scrolling hardware acceleration, which computers beat by sheer brute force.

>> No.8154716

>>8152889
People generally had a Commodore or an Atari / Tandy in addition to an NES. Commodore was also more expensive than an NES if you count in the disk drive (here in Murrica we used disks).
A console is also easier to use than a computer and the NES had faster more colorful games than the home computers did.

>> No.8154748

>>8154716
>and the NES had faster more colorful games than the home computers did.
i feel this might not have been an issue if Americans made some actual arcade game on computers instead of Wizardry. Europeans could do it why couldn't you?

>> No.8154794

>>8154372
I think you're wrong. I think they play these games multiple times, then buy the remakes too.

>> No.8154798

>>8154748
...and Euro games are high 90s percent garbage.

>> No.8154812

>>8154798
you do know nobody back in the 80s cared about retarded platform/country wars, right?

>> No.8154823

>>8152889
Consoles were marketed as toys for kids, were perceived as more durable than a computer, carts were pretty durable and consoles had a lower price tag. And literally every game that was a household name was a console game.

Back then; if your kid wants a way to play games, he's gonna see Nintendo and Sega ads in comic books, on tv on saturday morning and his school pals are gonna sell him on whatever they have (or want)
No kid is gonna go to his mom and say "I REALLY need that new computer! I have some word processing iI need to do! And it plays games too!"
No, it was "MOM! that new mario game that timmy was telling me about is on this nintendo thing and I need it NAO!!!!!!"

And most adults had no use for a computer back then either.

>> No.8154832

>>8154716
>people generally had...
No they didn't you know nothing child. In the 80's, the average schmuck had less than zero use for a computer, and most people never owned one. They weren't seen as must have household appliances yet, and they were so archaic and utilitarian that nobody who didn't have a specific use for one bothered for the most part.

>> No.8154854

idk Commodore were pretty good at plugging the "It plays arcade action but you can also do your school reports on it so it's educational" angle with (especially) the VIC-20. that was early 80s though, before the NES was a thing. because you could sell parents on the educational angle while an Atari 2600 was just a toy that damaged kids brains.

i think they could have still pulled that off with the Amiga if they had any smarts ("Unlike those Nintendos, this can also get you into Yale"), but after Jack Tramiel they were just running on autopilot. instead they pitched the Amiga as a tool for video and graphics editing which was a highly niche field and not enough to sell computers on.

>> No.8154858

>>8154794
A remake tends to be more than just a barely upgraded port, as is the case with many Japanese PC ports. They would rather buy Catherine Full Body than the Steam version of the original.

>> No.8154863

>>8154832
Nerds had them. People bought computers because it was the "new thing" and they were available at places like Radio Shack relatively cheaply, on installment plans. Schools encouraged "computer literacy" and you were bombarded with how much computers were useful.

>> No.8154957

idk, the Tandy 1000 was a very hot item during Christmas '86. Radio Shack had waiting lists to get one.

>> No.8155105

>>8154716
Getting a disk drive was cheaper than buying more than 3 nintendo games.

>> No.8155116

>>8154716
And
>the NES had faster more colorful games than the home computers did.
No, the c64 has faster sprites hardware. NES isn't much more colourful, its just more garish.

>> No.8155128

>>8155116
NES has a higher clock speed (1.7Mhz while C64 is 1.2Mhz) although smaller sprites and trickier to program since you can't fuck with the PPU or video RAM any time you feel like, it gets upset when you touch it during the active render.

>> No.8155131

>>8154854
>Commodore were pretty good at plugging the "It plays arcade action but you can also do your school reports on it so it's educational" angle with (especially) the VIC-20
And it was honest marketing. Many computer scientists and assembly programmers learned from the Vic 20.

>> No.8155165

>>8155128
Yes the NES has very small 8x8 sprites. C64 could display huge, something like 24x24, single colour sprites, and that should save CPU cycles. Rendering multi colour sprites was a little bit tricky, but it wasn't a huge issue in the 8 bit era anyway.

>> No.8155175

>>8155105
plus you could swap floppies and run shareware for free games lol

>mfw fairlight is still crapping on consoletards and copy pro 30 years later

>> No.8155186

>>8155165
>>8155128
C64 required fairly intricate software sprite multiplexer to display more than 8 sprites on screen. of course if you didn't have the coding skills for that you could just pull an Atari 2600 Pac-Man and rotate through them although it's flickery. Jumpman Jr. had 2 levels changed from the Atari 8-bit since Randy Glover admitted he didn't know how to write a multiplexer.

>> No.8155312

>>8155186
>fairly intricate software sprite multiplexer
Not that hard for those experienced in aasembly I heard. Most games don't need more than 8 sprites on screen anyway. Unlike the NES the C64 could display 8 large sprites.
>Randy Glover admitted he didn't know how to write a multiplexer.
Well the Atari 8 bit sprites hardware works completely differently from the C64, and most computer games back then were made by amateurish programmers.

>> No.8155353

>>8155314
both the Master System and C64 have this limitation, you need to waste memory with different sprites for each about-face of something or else waste CPU time inverting them on the fly. that particular bit in AOL with multiple of the same enemy facing different directions would be a major headache to attempt on C64.

>> No.8155419

>>8155165
NES also had mapper chips.
>>8155175
>>8155105
Renting games was cheaper, and the C64 had floppy protection. (unless you downloaded a game off a BBS)

>> No.8155576

>>8155312
>>8155186
I'm not sure anyone in 1983 was doing multiplexers on C64 yet.

>> No.8155594

>>8155353
one solution is having a sprite lookup table to use to flip them with. it's fast but takes some memory which is in short supply on an 8-bit machine.

>> No.8155652

Another strategy sometimes used on C64 was to store sprites as characters and copy them into the sprite block areas as needed.

>> No.8155664

>>8155419
>NES also had mapper chips.
Good for moving tiles around, but sprites still flicker horribly and objects are still made of 8x8 sprites. Also games with mapper chips weren't cheap.
>Renting games was cheaper
The most expensive 8-bit computer games on floppy were £10, they could be played for a long long time. £1 or £2 would get you budget titles on cassettes. Plus you could get free games from magazines and stuff, especially in Europe and pre-NES US. Renting games was probably a bit cheaper, depends on what kind of game you're getting, but owning games is still nicer.

>> No.8155695

>>8155664
Lol they were a lot more than 10 pounds. For an example I saw Commodore games go for as much as $60 here.

>> No.8155796

>>8155695
What year and what game?

>> No.8155826

>>8153365
>>8153991
>PCs only become viable in late 90s when they're cheap enough and your dad realizes he can access unlimited adult entertainment on the Interwebz.
>zoom zoom
Childhood memories of playing N64 while daddy whacks his PEE-PEE in front of the new computer he got for internet? Yeah I'd say that's pretty zoomie.

>> No.8156234

>>8155796
Late 1980s. I don't remember what games, but they were very clearly in the C64 section.

>> No.8156240

>>8155826
There are few zoomers who can remember the 90s at all. Born in 1997 is the start for them so the first console most of them got their hands on was either a GBA or PS2.

>> No.8156265
File: 97 KB, 499x715, ZZap_64_Issue_028_1987_Aug_0046 (1).jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8156265

>>8156234
I'm not sure where you're getting that from. This is Pirates, one of the really big games for the system, and its £20 for the disk version on launch day. That's like $30. The tape version is cheaper.

>> No.8156286

>>8156265
Yeah I live in the USA, where consoles reigned supreme.

>> No.8156291

>>8156265
Please do not feed the tripfag. It is neither kind nor necessary.

>> No.8157091
File: 195 KB, 1024x1024, batmanNES.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8157091

>>8155116
>NES isn't much more colourful
Where's the C64 games which look like this? Are they fast?

>> No.8157114

>>8157091
they did a good enough job of working around the NES's limitations but still can't escape the 4 colors per 16x16 metatile

>> No.8157136

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ8i5WC70F8

Bah. A ZX Spectrum could do this. There's only a few objects moving around at any point. Actually LOZ would be a far harder game to do on C64 or Spectrum because it has lots of small sprites.

>> No.8157157

>>8157114
So what? if you work around a limitation like that smartly, it won't even show unless you're a hardware nerd who inexplicably pays attention to features like that. It's like complaining about dithering.

>> No.8157161

I don't know who in this thread is more retarded

>> No.8157167

Dithering and whatnot effects were designed to blend on a CRT TV anyway, so...

>> No.8157183
File: 284 KB, 762x820, UK Sales Chart May 1992.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8157183

>>8152889
> why did consoles sell better than computers in the retro era
They didn't

>> No.8157341

>>8152889
>consoles were plug-and-play
>PCs almost always had some setup bullshittery
>consoles had a better supply chain
>PC games were only in specialty stores and MAYBE one sad rack in big box stores
>console games were more multiplayer friendly
>PC games were for nerds
>console games had dedicated marketing
>PC games were just something people stumbled into
>console games worked with their consoles
>does this PC game work with my PC? fuck, idk, it's pre-2000 and nobody but nerds knows shit about PCs
>consoles hit hit every genre
>PCs had simulation, first person, and strategy, with a good chance the game was 100% puzzles and/or had zero real time player-input action
>"here's your vidya toy, little anon"
>"wtf does a 12yo need a computer for? i ain't buying you a computer just to play games"

>> No.8157354
File: 367 KB, 778x1018, trash.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8157354

>>8157341
>PCs had simulation, first person, and strategy, with a good chance the game was 100% puzzles and/or had zero real time player-input action
>it's not a real game if it's not scrolling action stuff
Oh it's one of these guys.

>> No.8157450
File: 70 KB, 1024x820, 6892BF0F-1DB6-49C7-9887-5414E1752FE1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8157450

>>8157341
>>consoles hit hit every genre

>> No.8157454

>>8157136
>A ZX Spectrum could do this
With only four colors total, four colors which barely behave, and no worthwhile kind of scrolling? Batman is hardly the fastest game on the NES, no, I'll give you that, but there's nothing on the ZX which looks even remotely as good, and few games as fast.

What I was asking for was a C64 game with comparable graphical fidelity, ideally it should be fun to play too.

>> No.8157462

>>8157454
it has 16 colors

>> No.8157465

>>8157114
Yeah Batman would look better on the Master System.

>> No.8157481

>>8157454
>ideally it should be fun to play to
this is a bad quality to use because one person's subjective idea of fun is not another's

>> No.8157487

>>8157354
>shit reading comprehension
>uses text-based communication
>>8157450
>fails greentext

>> No.8157493

>>8157462
It has 8.

>> No.8157508
File: 1 KB, 320x240, Zx-colors.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8157508

>>8157493
is 16 unless you're anal enough to insist it's 8 colors at 2 intensity levels

>> No.8157546

>>8157454
it would be a bit slower and less colourful but I fail to see anything special about the core game mechanics a Spectrum cannot do

>> No.8157627
File: 2 KB, 256x64, NES_palette.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8157627

>>8157508
Those shades are barely different. Compare to the NES having more than 50 shades.

>>8157546
Do you mean a 128k Spectrum?

>> No.8157632

>>8157627
the NES palette is bad and garish. Nintendo have always been bad at designing color palettes.

>> No.8157679
File: 144 KB, 1200x900, ninjagaidennodamagerunnes-1200x900.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8157679

>>8157632
So garish.

>> No.8157703

>>8157632
is there an 8-bit machine with a good one?

>> No.8158227

>>8157183
Have consolemakers been lying to us all along?

>> No.8158327
File: 9 KB, 330x215, deadlock5.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8158327

>>8157091
Batman looks impressive for a NES game, but yeah it's not very colourful, you can see the attribute limitations there. The C64 doesn't have as many colours on its palate, but it does dithering (combining 2 colours into a new pixelated one) really nicely. Just look at Turrican 2, Dan Dare 3, Shadow of the Beast, Retrogade, Creatures 2, and this unreleased game. They run fast too, sprite movement is independent from the CPU and background movement is basically just bit shifting coloured text on the screen.

>> No.8158440

>>8153127
>The average consumer must've been dumber than a bag of rocks.
yeschad.jpg

>> No.8159813

>>8152889
>ask simple question
>can't leave it at that
>must say all kinds of stupid wrong shit
Zoomers. Every. Fucking. Time.

>> No.8159838

>>8157183
They did in America and Japan

>> No.8159842

>>8158327
That’s fucking ugly, don’t get me started on the spectrum either

>> No.8159860

>>8159842
emulator graphics always look much worse than the real thing on a CRT TV

>> No.8159920

>>8158327
There we go, here's something that's good looking. In truth I hold no kind of contempt for the Commodore 64, I just don't think people should downplay the NES and what people actually did with it, the popularity wasn't all hype.

>>8159842
It's not super colorful, but it's overall very nicely done. The Macintosh had only pitch black and bright white, no grays, no colors, and still that fucking thing could produce beautiful graphics with just some very expert dithering.
Color is valuable, but it's also not everything.

>> No.8159936

>>8153316
Everyone had a nes in Sweden poor or not

>> No.8159962

>>8159936
Yeah, he's bullshitting hard. The NES was very common by the 90s, I only ever saw a Genesis once, saw one old Atari computer, and never a C64.
I'm of course limited by only my own experiences, so I'm sure there were plenty of Sega, Atari, and Commodore, but not nearly as common as Nintendo consoles and later Playstations.