By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
rjason12 on 30 June 2017
Edit Thread
Lawlight said:
killeryoshis said:

You are right I am missing a few circumstances. The amount of games released on the PS4 is way higher than the NES recieved back in the day. Less games = less sales. 

Also PC gaming has always been around and growing. It could be argued that PC was a bigger threat back then as PC actually had exclusives that you will never find on consoles like Ultima and Wizardry. Also PC's were way more advance than anything the NES could do. I am talking about having huge open world games in 1985.  (Which were more in depth than anything the NES could munster.)  PCs were 16 bit while the outdated NES was 8 bit.  Almost every Western PC company avoided the NES because of it being outdated and harsh 3rd party restrictions. Source


Also Microsoft entering the gaming industry much as they spend billions of dollars trying to beak into the industry but can only sell in America and UK. I do not see a reason why I should take them in consideration as they don't impact the industry like population growth and openings of new markets. 

Also mobile gaming doesn't even effect Handhelds let alone big budget home console games.  Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20110603032017/http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/06/01/goo_3ds_survey/

1. The PC market back was very much separate from the console market unlike today where there is some overlapping. As you yourself pointed out - the markets were very much separate and not in competition with one another.

 

2. You said MS can only sell in NA and the UK - well that's 2 of the biggest gaming markets right there. They're much bigger competition than Nintendo has ever faced with the NES.

 

3. You're giving me an article about why the 3DS wasn't selling in 2011 - a year when less than 15% of mobile users had a smartphone. Compare this to 2015 when 77% of mobile users had a smartphone. There's also a big difference between mobile gaming in 2011 vs now.

https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Mobile-Phone-Users-Japan-Upgrade-Smartphones-Finally/1012880

https://1d31c772ec21a65b0a71-0707aae3004193da193e1ad4a942592d.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/24968/japan_mobile_profits__large.jpg

On top of that, you're ignoring the downwards trend of consoles in Japan. The NES is the 2nd highest selling console in Japan with only the PS2 surpassing it. Even th Wii only sold 12.5M there compared to the NES's 19.35M.

 

Now, let's look at a point that you forgot: Rise of alternative forms of entertainment. During the NES era, you're at home, you're a kid - what's the best way to spend time - video games. Any other distraction back then is still available today. But now:

1. Social media. The average perso spends 116 minutes, almost 2 hours per day, on social media. That's 2 hours that could have been spent on gaming.

2. Streaming services. It's easy to now access thousands of movies/shows to entertain oneself. Average time spent on just Netflix by a subscriber is 1h33min per day. That's more time that could have been spent gaming.

3. And yes, smartphones. Smartphones cut into people's use of a gaming device and it provides multiple ways to spend time.

All of the above compete against the PS4 in one way or  another as they offer alternative ways to spend time.

Some people seem to forget that music and playing in bands was a big part of kids/teens lives back in the 80s, they also would go outside a lot more than kids now, and would go to arcades. There were tons of alternatives. Also we have about 2-3 billion more people on the planet now than the 80s, and the fact that back then it was mainly a kids market. Now you have those kids playing games along with the younger gen of today.