By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
nuckles87 on 09 July 2017
Edit Thread
potato_hamster said:
nuckles87 said:

Fact of the matter is, the video game industry's history is a complex web of contributions from a multitude of different companies, many of which never even made a console. I mean, in both Japan and Europe, computers, NOT consoles, were the major gaming devices. Japan had the MSX, the U.K. had Amstrad, ZX Spectrum, and the BBC Microcomputer. Even during, before, and AFTER the video game crash, US gamers were playing on Commodore 64s and various Atari 8-bit computers, among other machines. 

To even credit the 2600 as "the most important console" is a bit of a stretch. Sure, it was the first successful gaming device that utilized cartridges, but it didn't build that success on its own. Its foundations were the Pong home console and arcade machine, which were the first gaming devices to Introduce digital gaming to the mass market successfully. It built off the success of these machines. And Pong itself was inspired by the Magnavox Odysssey, which was a commercial failure but pioneered a lot of basic concepts like game controllers, light guns games, and the Pong game itself. 

Even when you go this far back, you need to consider whether commercial success or innovation is more important when answering a question like this. Generally, I consider commercial success to be more important, which is why I essentially "voted" for Pong.

Atari actually created the a market for console gaming. Atari actually made console video gaming main-stream. The Atari 2600 was how they did that. Atari created the market that Nintnedo apparently saved by creating, marketing and supporting a console that was over ten times more popular than any "console" (however you may define it) before it.

If we're going to start talking about "innovation", and claim that Atari shouldn't get credit because they really only "popularized" certain things, then you have to dock a huge amount of credit from Nintendo, as the vast majority of things that people claim Nintendo innovated was actually the popularization of other company's innovations, just like Atari did.

P.S. Also, it's amazing how the Magnavox Odyssey inspired Pong, when it was released 3 years after Pong. Seems odd to me, but hey, this thread is completely lacking in reasonable thinking, so why should I be surrpised?


Atari did create a market for console gaming...with the Tele-games Pong console. I didn't say Atari didn't create the console market, I just said the 2600 wasn't the genesis of it. Their pong console was HUGELY successful, inspired numerous sequels, variants, and clones globally, and was effectively the first successfully mass marketed gaming device. 

Also, I'm not defending Nintendo here. You're right. Nintendo was less an innovator in gaming hardware, and more a company that knew how to take others innovations and put them in a well made product, and knew how to market said product. I'd argue the NES's single biggest innovation was how Nintendo marketed it as a toy in the US, in order to get past the stigma retailers had towards gaming consoles (though this brought its own set of problems, but I won't discuss those here). That being said, Nintendo DOES deserve a lot of credit for the d-pad, which is hugely important to 2D gaming as a whole.

And finally...you are thinking of the Magnavox Odyssey 2. I was referring to the original Magnavox Odyssey, from 1972, which predates Pong by a few years. The very FIRST consumer gaming device, a device so old it lacked color, sound, and didn't even utilize microprocessors. I actually own one. It's a very fascinating and clever device for its day. The programmers at Magnavox got around its limitations by giving the system a lot of games that utilized physical things like cards and overlays. Even the way it played more than one game was unique: since ROM carts weren't really a thing in 1972, so the game cartridges it took were essentially cards that rewired the actua internal circuitry of the console.

Edit: it occurs to me, I never actually said Pong was Atari's machine. Sorry, I didn't mean to leave that out. XD