The_Liquid_Laser said:
Heh, this thread is still going. It's still basically two opposing sides making wrong/half right arguments against the other side. Here is the actual truth from someone who lived in the US, is old enough to remember this stuff, and has spent a fair amount of time studying the history of video games. 1) Nintendo did not save all of gaming. They did not even save all of gaming in North America. Arcades were unaffected by the console market crash, and PC gaming was growing in the mid 80s (particularly the C64), mostly because PC gaming was filling the void left by consoles. 2) Nintendo actually did save console gaming. They created the console market in Japan, and they revived it in US. The amount of "dominoes" that Nintendo had to line up to accomplish both of these things is pretty amazing. The chances of some other company doing the same thing later are slim to none. Not only did Nintendo utilize a lot of initiative and ingenuity to create/revive the console market, but most other companies that had consoles got into the console market, because Nintendo had made it such a lucrative market. 3) Without Nintendo, gaming as a whole would still exist today, but it would be somewhat of a niche medium in comparison. During the console market crash, the C64 filled the void left by consoles. A few years later, the NES was the market leader and caused the downfall of Commodore. However, if in a world where Nintendo never enters console gaming, the PC model established during the console market crash is what would have prevailed. Commodore sales of the C64 are about 1/4 of NES sales. Therefore, without Nintendo and console gaming, the game industry would continue to be about 1/4 of the size compared to what it was with Nintendo and console gaming. Consoles have a lot of advantages compared to PCs (cost, simplicity, controls, etc...) and that is what causes the game industry to be 4 times larger than with just PC gaming alone. Without consoles not only would there be fewer games every year, and fewer high quality games, but there would also be far less of what we consider AAA big budget games. A game like GTA3 (and later GTAs) would likely never get funded. This is the sort of big budget game that gets funded when there is money to be made. Without the big money, there wouldn't be big games either. So in conclusion, it is hyperbole to say that Nintendo single-handedly saved gaming. Gaming would still exist without Nintendo ever reviving the console industry. However it also hyperbolic in the other direction to suggest Nintendo had no lasting effect. Without the NES gaming wouldn't be nearly as robust as it is today. Much of the argument that people have in this thread has to do with the definition of "saving gaming". Does it mean "saving its existence" or does it mean "saving from mediocrity". Nintendo did not save all of gaming, and in fact, all of gaming did not even need saving. However they did revive the console industry in such a dramatic and overwhelming successful way that they very much did save gaming from mediocrity. They defied all conventional wisdom at the time and won the uphill battle of establishing a permanent console gaming market. |
