Post your comments and questions on A Guru's World #28: Videogame Consoles.

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ActiveTuning - Partner & Director Of Sales & Marketing

I was born during page 3 Actually, wasn't it Nintendo being bitches about using proprietary techniques that were not theirs (CDs) ? They liked the extra dough they made off of cartridge, since they could set the price however they wanted.I kinda remember them being small DVDs, though I may be wrong.

I missed most of that due to my mom not wanting me to own a console for a loooong time. First one I got was and SNES, and it was during the last year of its life or so. I still have it, in working order, though

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Clarify that, please. I don't understand the question.

I think what you're talking about is a whole other issue that dates back to the NES.

Nintendo was sued several times because of their "lock out" feature that prevented other manufcaturers from freely making cartridges for the NES system. This "lock out" is what led to the "Genuine Nintendo" (or something like that) label on the outside of their cartridge's packages. This issue, however, had nothing to do with their choice of media.

What I was talking about was when everyone was going CD, Nintendo stuck with cartridges because cartridges can not be copied like CDs can be copied. More than anything, Nintendo feared consumers burning copies of their games, thus the cartridges... thus the 3" DVDs.

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Hey. What kind of party is this? There's no booze and only one hooker. -- Bender (Futurama)

What I meant is that I heard that when they made the N64, they stuck with cartridge cause it was a proprietary method that they had copyrighted, hence, they made more money for each cartridge from the selling price, since they could set the price to publish a cartridge at whatever they wanted.

They didn't want a CD based system because they couldn't control the price as well, that and copying of games.

Personally, it struck me as them being greedy and not caring about the effect it would have on games.

Some WAY old issue of EGM had a pie chart of the cost for games on the Saturn, N64 and PSX, the N64 had a 10$ part that went straight to the big N just because it was a N64 game. Greediness killed the system ...

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Your theory was shot down by the courts when the NES was new. The N64 was just plain to complicated to bother developing games for. Also, all games have to be approved by Nintendo before release (but not made by). This only made matters worse.

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Hey. What kind of party is this? There's no booze and only one hooker. -- Bender (Futurama)

Ah, I see, thanks for the clarifications

Lets see, you said it came out in 1996, I'm assuming you were talking about the US release date ?

Last I heard of this was when it was still named Ultra64*. So let's assume 1995-ish ?

I was about 14 back then, and haven't made any further research into the subject, mostly due to my lack of interest for all things Nintendo once I heard SquareSoft was moving in with Sony.

Seeing that I generally never liked Nintendo's way of doing things, I just assumed that bit of info was genuine.

About the article : I thought it would attract far more attention, why is it that only us 2 are discussing it ? I know I prefer consoles by far for gaming, which is why I don't pay too much attention to computer related stuff, but still, they're 2 viable game markets, and people that dub themselves gamer should be able to partake in both, and thus have an opinion on the article, right ?

Just sad to see this one go uncommented when the "Best Console" thread attracted so many person vehemently defending their point of view. Maybe it is true that people shun the past and only want to know about the present and future

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* Which I think was a much cooler name, and had a WAY better logo.

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I'm sure this Guru's World will sit in the annals of the internet as a good reference. That was actually my intention. Just like with the Heatsink installation guide, when someone needs a reference (Arguments over which was the first console, first with a CPU etc), it will show up in the search engines and be there when someone needs it.

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Hey. What kind of party is this? There's no booze and only one hooker. -- Bender (Futurama)

I needed it in 2nd year of HS ! ( which is FAR in the past )

But I was able to piece most of it together, though with some differences.

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He.... Well someone didn't like it. :-p

Oh well!

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Hey. What kind of party is this? There's no booze and only one hooker. -- Bender (Futurama)

Maybe said person should voice their opinion in detail. At least to make sure there's not only the 2 of us talking in here

BTW, I just rehooked my SNES for my mom, she wanted to play Mario ... LoL

She forbids it for 14 years, then she wants to play with it, talk about fairness. At least, the next gen consoles are mine only

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I don't know why people hate Nintendo for the cartridge system. Frankly, I think cartridges are a FAR superior game storage medium.

Cartridges are more difficult to damage or break than a CD. You can whip them against walls, drop them on the ground, spill sticky liquids on 'em, and they keep on rolling...

Also, transfer rates are blazing (it's similar to storing the entire game in RAM), so there are no load times. Some people argue that this is not an issue...it is,even if a small one. Say you have two copies of a game in front of you, both identical, but one is in cartridge format (and loads almost immediately), while the other is in CD format (and loads in 10-30 seconds). Which one would you pick?

Also, I like the fact that at one time Nintendo FORCED 3rd party developers to have their games "reviewed" before being published. This would ensure that only quality product is released. Can you name ONE genuine Nintendo game (not 3rd party) that sucked (Kirby and Pokemon are NOT valid answers, becase they are targeted at younger audiences - besides, BOTH are quite easy to play)?

[/RANT]

Bullshit ! Probably why you had to blow on them to make them work ? or why knocking them erased your saved games, huh ?So, you want a cartridge with >4gig of data on it ? any idea on the price that would run ? a LOT of moneyHave you tried CD based games recently ? GTA3 loads in 20 seconds at startup, and that is ALL. Refer back to the size of games again.OMG, you made a funny !!! I can't remember any N game that made me thought I needed that systemFirst, ruling out games with your own set of rules makes this an invalid sample. I could name many, but names don't come to mind, they were far from memorable.

Nintendo Fanboy

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Couple of things that stood out that might want to be corrected:

The very definition or a rom based programmable console is that it runs on a computer (microprocessor/digital) based setup rather than an analog based (elaborate collection of electrical components as you put it).

As such, the VCS was certainly not the first one of that nature as you reported. The Fairchild VES was, which ran on a special Fairchild designed microprocessor. Likewise, unlike what you reported, the VES was not successful. In fact it suffered horribly that Christmass and didn't survive the next, for the simple fact of the massive dumping of cheap pong systems on the market because of the release of the VES in the first place. Manufacturers became scared they were obsolete and wanted to get rid of product quickly. So there were so many extremely cheap pong systems (and later handhelds) on the market that it killed the system even though it was technilogically superior. Likewise the system was plagued with quality problems.
Also, the name change from VES to ChannelF was because of Atari's tactic of naming theirs the VCS.

Regarding the Atari VCS photo - that would be the wrong photo for your time frame. The first one released in 77 was an all wood grain 6 switch model called the Heavy Sixer because of the heavy tin shielding inside because of FCC restrictions at the time. You're showing an early 80's 4 switch model. And as I mentioned before, it was not the first microprocessor based system.

Regarding your comment on Ralph Baer approaching RCA first.
The part of not "wanting to buy Ralph's current employer" is incorrect. It was a licensing agreement, not an agreement to buy the company itself. Ralph's place of employment deal with military contracts. It was not for sale.

The Bally system released in 1978 was called the Professional Arcade. It was changed to Astrocade at a much later time.

Your picture of the 1979 Intellivision console is wrong. That's the much later released Intellivision II model. The 16 bit vs. 10 bit, the internal speed of the processor does not always have anything to do with the system bus or it's supporting hardware (such as the graphics chip). The first actuall full 16 bit system with a 16 bit bus and architecture was the Genesis. Though it would have been the Amiga system if the crash of '84 hadn't occured.

Activision was born in 1979, not 1980. 1979 was the year of a massive exodus of a lot of the original Atari people.

The Colecovision came out in 1982, not in 1983.

The Vectrex came out the same year as the Colecovision - 1982. Both were cancelled in '84. It was also the first system to have 3D goggles.

The second edition 2 port model of the 5200 had an optional module that made it compatible with the 2600.

Jack's company did not get to keep the rights to the previous games. The rights were shared between Atari Games and Atari Corp. as was the logo.

The damage to Atari was not done because of ET and the 5200. It's well known it was the glut of crappy third 2600 games, and Atari's mistake of overproduction and forcing buyers to place orders for a full year at once.

The NES was only testmarketd in New York in winter '85. It did not actually revive the industry until '86.

The damage done to the 7800 (besides not being released in '84 when it was supposed to) was done because it simply had the same old titles and very little marketing. Same with the 2600jr, which was supposed to have been released in '84.

The XEGS was meant to be an entry level computer, not simply a game console. As the 5200 had been an Atari 400 computer repackaged but with no way to make it in to a fullfledged 400, the 7800 was Jack's attempt at doing what he felt should have been done with the 400 and 5200. Release a console/computer combination to get the best of both worlds.

The Lynx's problem was not a lack of software. It was too high a price to compare to the cheaper mono-gameboy. They simply could not get the screen manufacturer to lower the price like it had promised, which is why they eventually wound up suing them.

The Neo-Geo MVS system (as the coinop is called) was the original system. The home system came later, and was intended for places such as Blockbuster where systems were rented. Which also had to the with the high purchase price.

The reason the 3DO was so high was because it was not considered or marketed as a gaming console. It was an "entertainment center" that also played games. A concept similar to the Nuon system of years later.

The VR headset for the Jaguar was never released. There were simply a few prototypes built.

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Marty
www.classicgaming.com

www.classicgaming.com/gamingmuseum

You've definitely attracted some attention from the big boys there, jonny ^^^.

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Aaron Dahlen - Gaming Editor
aaron@slcentral.com
SLCentral - Your logical choice for computing and technology
http://www.slcentral.com

Athlon XP 1800+ ... K7V DRAGON Plus ... 256 MB PC2100 ... GeForce3 PowerPack !!! ... Sound Blaster Audigy ... IBM 60GXP 40 GB ... Samsung SyncMaster 950p ... Windows XP Home

Look at the title of the picture. I credit it as an Intellivision II, not an Intellivision. It was the best picture I had. Perhaps a caption would clarify. I make it a point not to steal other people's photos, and for the most part, all of the photos were company photos (ad copy, promo photos, etc).

I do admit that one phot was blatently stolen. The Atari 2600 photo was stolen from an eBay auction. DOH! I didn't have or couldn't find an Atari ad or promo photo that represented the Atari 2600 clearly.

Certainly my column is just a reference, and you run an entire site based on home game consoles, but accuracy is important and I have every intention on implimenting the corrections you offered.

Gotta admit though, not bad for writing most of that off the top of my head.

I didn't have my ColecoVision until '83. I thought it missed the '82 Christmas. My bad. I didn't have my Vectrex until '84. That's my ColecoVision in the picture. My Vectrex I sold ten years ago for $50.

I was probably thinking about when Milton Bradley bought it from GCE, although I have to admit that my Vectrex was a GCE unit and not a Milton Bradley unit.

Jesus! Of ALL OF THE SPECS I got wrong, those two should've been the ones I got right!

Thanks for all of the wonderful factoids!

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Hey. What kind of party is this? There's no booze and only one hooker. -- Bender (Futurama)