Hynad said:
What you’re saying is an half truth. Part of the truth is that the industry in the US was in a slump, for sure. But in Japan and Europe, it wasn’t going through the same struggles. In case you don’t know, the US isn’t the world, and as such isn’t “The Industry”. And while it is undoubtedly one of the biggest markets right now, the industry at the time was continuing to grow elsewhere, regardless of the situation with the saturation caused by the second gen systems in the US.
The NES did wonders to help make video games what they are now, that goes without saying. But they did not save the industry, as it didn’t need saving. What they did is help the industry make a big leap forward by relying on great game designs that were easy to understand by everyone while being engaging and looked heaps better than the pixel/stick characters from years prior. The console had the right form factor, pricing, and unique software for the US market to take notice. Add to that what you said about Nintendo handling retailers relations fairly by [among other aspects] not asking them to pay upfront but only for the consoles actually sold, and sure enough, the US side of the market emerged out of its slump.
When originally released in 1983, it was criticized in Japan for being unreliable, and sure enough, it was competing with Sega’s SG-1000, which released the same year, and then the Sega Mark III which came out in 1985 and was then remodeled and renamed as Master System when it released outside of Japan in 1986. After getting this criticism, Nintendo worked to fix the problems and the NES then achieved success. It is only after the console became a hit in Japan (which is, you know, part of “The Industry”...) that they set their ambition towards the North American market. People at the time were still pretty much into video games, it was a growing hobby, but there were no big killer apps, game were samey, and lacked depth and originality. Super Mario Bros came and became that killer app that the US market was longing for, thanks to the sharply focused design philosophies of Miyamoto.
So to reiterate, Nintendo rejuvenated the industry and helped it take a big step forward that would probably have taken a few years to be taken if not for Miyamoto’s game output.
The industry would have continued to grow at a different pace, but it certainly wasn’t going to end if Nintendo hadn’t released the NES. Sega would have still released the SG-1000 and Mark III, and that’s not mentioning Epoch and the other players from that time, who were working to bring the arcades into people’s home.
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