Shadow1980 said:
NA essentially was the console market back in the late 70s & early 80s, not only being the home of the console market (Atari, Mattel, Coleco, etc., were American companies) but also where nearly all consoles sales originated from. Atari was utterly dominant, with the 2600 capturing the vast majority of all sales. The 2800, the Japanese version of the 2600, wasn't released until several month after the Famicom was released. The Famicom was essentially the beginning of the console market in Japan and dominated the Japanese market until the SNES came out. Of course, Japan was a major player in the arcades, but they were a little late to the console market. As for Europe, the 2600 came out around the same time there as in America, but their console market was always much smaller. The only source I could find on European sales of the 2600 were of course VGC, who claims only 3.35M 2600s sold in Europe, which sounds plausible given how low Nintendo and Sega sales were in the 8-bit & 16-bit eras relative to the NA market. Still, the market pretty much bottomed out in Europe as well. So, the NES save console gaming in NA and made it relevant in Japan, while Europe is a more ambiguous case. In any case, had the NES failed to revitalize the console market in NA and make consoles relevant in Japan, we might not be playing consoles today. It really was a make-or-break moment for the industry. |
You are correct. In other words, gaming was fine in the rest of the world. The correct term would be Nintendo helped console gaming in NA. The only company that affected gaming worldwide is Sony when it debuted the PlayStation, which made gaming mainstream and an entertainment option as valid as movies.
