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Forums - Gaming Discussion - What was the Greatest Launch Title of all Time?

 

What was the greatest launch title of all time?

Combat 0 0%
 
Super Mario Bros. 20 12.20%
 
Super Mario World 19 11.59%
 
Virtua Fighter (Saturn) 2 1.22%
 
Twisted Metal 2 1.22%
 
Super Mario 64 32 19.51%
 
Halo Combat Evolved 16 9.76%
 
Twilight Princess 3 1.83%
 
Breath of the Wild 64 39.02%
 
Other 6 3.66%
 
Total:164
Wyrdness said:
HoloDust said:

Not really - ZX and C64 were kings of gaming in Europe in 80s, NES did start to seriously chip away that market, but I'd say that SEGA Mega Drive and SNES were what brought computer gaming to its knees in late 80s/early 90s...at least until PCs regained some of that lost ground later on.

NES didn't release in Europe until mid to late 80s with the earliest releases being in late 1986 with some countries having to wait until 1988 it's the platform that triggered computer gaming to struggle the late release in Europe was why computer gaming had a good stint as the were no active consoles around before NES after the crash it's only really in the UK where computer gaming continued to put up a fight.

It still didn't kill the gaming computer at all. After all, around the same time came the Amiga and Atari ST, and PC got more and more turned to gaming by getting EGA and then VGA graphics cards. Even Apple tried to woo gamers at the time. Germany and France for instance continued gaming on those machines and others (Amstrad/Schneider CPC, anyone?), and the tradition of computer gaming has survived to this day, especially in mainland Europe where PC gaming is still considered very big.

What it did, was bring in a new type of competition. But the NES (or consoles in general) had no chance at all to kill the PC gaming market of the time since they couldn't compete with the prices that were usual on PC outside of big boxes, especially cassette games were dirt cheap (10$ would have been considered expensive for those back then). Also, the PC had genres the consoles didn't have, or not in that form or size, like managerial games and adventures, both which got bigger and bigger in the late 80's and early 90's.

On topic: Where's Tetris???

Last edited by Bofferbrauer2 - on 09 July 2019

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Azuren said:
curl-6 said:

Actually multiple games have borrowed from BOTW, but that's beside the point. Even if nobody tried to copy it, that wouldn't change the fact that it did new things.

What did it do that was new? 

The physics engine is pretty unique.  Link is pretty much only held back by the player's imagination.  Google some videos, it is crazy the amount of things the physics engine allows the player to do.  

I would also argue the Switch in general allowed BotW to be groundbreaking.  It was the first time that seamless gameplay could occur between the home and on the road.  While maintaining graphics, cutting edge for the mobile scene.  



Bofferbrauer2 said:

It still didn't kill the gaming computer at all. After all, around the same time came the Amiga and Atari ST, and PC got more and more turned to gaming by getting EGA and then VGA graphics cards. Even Apple tried to woo gamers at the time. Germany and France for instance continued gaming on those machines and others (Amstrad/Schneider CPC, anyone?), and the tradition of computer gaming has survived to this day, especially in mainland Europe where PC gaming is still considered very big.

What it did, was bring in a new type of competition. But the NES (or consoles in general) had no chance at all to kill the PC gaming market of the time since they couldn't compete with the prices that were usual on PC outside of big boxes, especially cassette games were dirt cheap (10$ would have been considered expensive for those back then). Also, the PC had genres the consoles didn't have, or not in that form or size, like managerial games and adventures, both which got bigger and bigger in the late 80's and early 90's.

On topic: Where's Tetris???

The performances of the gaming market say otherwise as both NES and SMS chipped away at the computer market to the point that the SNES and Genesis outright ended that era until PCs took over, cassette games were dirt cheap but non of those games were anything like SMB, Sonic etc... which consoles were being driven by it was a complete shift in the market that ended with the likes of the old guard going under as they couldn't compete with the new consoles. To give you an example the Amstrad CPC sold 3m compared to the 6m of SMS and 8m of the NES highlighting my point as consoles at the time of the release of these devices were dead yet the home computers were beaten out in the end.



Replicant said:
curl-6 said:

I feel like there's something people are overlooking with BOTW; it was the first time that a complex, HD/AAA open world game was playable on a handheld. That in itself is a pretty significant breakthrough for gaming.

Was it really that different from bringing e.g. Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation and Borderlands 2 to Vita?

Those were valiant efforts for their time and hardware, but ultimately I'd say they were unsuccessful experiments that tried but failed to translate the AAA open world experience to a handheld. Liberation was quite restricted and cut back compared to its big brothers on PS3/360 yet still ran poorly, and Borderlands 2 on Vita was basically an unplayable slideshow. Compared to BOTW I'd say its a lot like how Mario 64 compares to previous failed attempts at bringing platforming into the third dimension.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 10 July 2019

Wyrdness said:
Bofferbrauer2 said:

It still didn't kill the gaming computer at all. After all, around the same time came the Amiga and Atari ST, and PC got more and more turned to gaming by getting EGA and then VGA graphics cards. Even Apple tried to woo gamers at the time. Germany and France for instance continued gaming on those machines and others (Amstrad/Schneider CPC, anyone?), and the tradition of computer gaming has survived to this day, especially in mainland Europe where PC gaming is still considered very big.

What it did, was bring in a new type of competition. But the NES (or consoles in general) had no chance at all to kill the PC gaming market of the time since they couldn't compete with the prices that were usual on PC outside of big boxes, especially cassette games were dirt cheap (10$ would have been considered expensive for those back then). Also, the PC had genres the consoles didn't have, or not in that form or size, like managerial games and adventures, both which got bigger and bigger in the late 80's and early 90's.

On topic: Where's Tetris???

The performances of the gaming market say otherwise as both NES and SMS chipped away at the computer market to the point that the SNES and Genesis outright ended that era until PCs took over, cassette games were dirt cheap but non of those games were anything like SMB, Sonic etc... which consoles were being driven by it was a complete shift in the market that ended with the likes of the old guard going under as they couldn't compete with the new consoles. To give you an example the Amstrad CPC sold 3m compared to the 6m of SMS and 8m of the NES highlighting my point as consoles at the time of the release of these devices were dead yet the home computers were beaten out in the end.

What performances?

Just to make it clear, it wasn't the SNES and Genesis Megadrive! that killed the other computers, the PC itself did. Intel kept pushing the X86 further and further and after IBM stopped caring, other companies started to create their own graphics cards. Both ensured that no competitor in the computer market could keep up with the PC. Commodore went under, Atari tried to realign itself onto consoles with the "success" we know. Apple became a niche product for graphics and audio later on, but during the late 80's and early 90's, they actively tried to get computer gaming on the MacIntosh going strong like it did early on the Apple ][, but never got that known for that domain. However, none of this was the console's doing.

I gave the Amstrad as an example of computers other than PC or Apple of the time. But hey, 14M consoles sold better than 3M Amstrad, so consoles killed computer gaming, yay. Sorry, but that's patently false. Since you added up those two consoles (and I'll round it up to 15M with PC Engine and Atari 7800 sales), I'll do a similar thing with computers, with their sales during the lifetime of the third Gen, so 1985 to 1994, cutting off the sales before 1985:

Amstrad: 3M

Amiga: 5M

Atari ST: 2M

MacIntosh: 16M

Apple ][: 3M

PC: 158M

C64: 13M

Granted, those numbers are worldwide numbers, but only Apple computers and PC really were popular in the US. A part of those computers were used for professional reasons, especially with the MacIntosh and the PC. But if even just 10% of the PCs were used for gaming in Europe, which is a realistic number since Europe was the main PC market at the time, then those alone outsold the 3rd Gen consoles of the same timeframe.



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Bofferbrauer2 said:

What performances?

Just to make it clear, it wasn't the SNES and Genesis Megadrive! that killed the other computers, the PC itself did. Intel kept pushing the X86 further and further and after IBM stopped caring, other companies started to create their own graphics cards. Both ensured that no competitor in the computer market could keep up with the PC. Commodore went under, Atari tried to realign itself onto consoles with the "success" we know. Apple became a niche product for graphics and audio later on, but during the late 80's and early 90's, they actively tried to get computer gaming on the MacIntosh going strong like it did early on the Apple ][, but never got that known for that domain. However, none of this was the console's doing.

I gave the Amstrad as an example of computers other than PC or Apple of the time. But hey, 14M consoles sold better than 3M Amstrad, so consoles killed computer gaming, yay. Sorry, but that's patently false. Since you added up those two consoles (and I'll round it up to 15M with PC Engine and Atari 7800 sales), I'll do a similar thing with computers, with their sales during the lifetime of the third Gen, so 1985 to 1994, cutting off the sales before 1985:

Amstrad: 3M

Amiga: 5M

Atari ST: 2M

MacIntosh: 16M

Apple ][: 3M

PC: 158M

C64: 13M

Granted, those numbers are worldwide numbers, but only Apple computers and PC really were popular in the US. A part of those computers were used for professional reasons, especially with the MacIntosh and the PC. But if even just 10% of the PCs were used for gaming in Europe, which is a realistic number since Europe was the main PC market at the time, then those alone outsold the 3rd Gen consoles of the same timeframe.

What you've posted here doesn't debunk what I've said in fact it further highlights it as look at the numbers for a start outside of the C64 the home computers were outperformed by the new consoles in Europe and this was a time when they were meant to be on top in fact your WW numbers show that the console numbers in Europe were significantly higher than the HC's WW numbers if we go by WW numbers than it further shows what I've said. This is why Atari tried to realign with consoles because their time had come to an end and it took until the late 90s for PCs to reinstate that side of the market but they were still being dominated by consoles as gaming goes it's only later on in 00s when the market found itself as a mainstay again.



curl-6 said:
Replicant said:

Was it really that different from bringing e.g. Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation and Borderlands 2 to Vita?

Those were valiant efforts for their time and hardware, but ultimately I'd say they were unsuccessful experiments that tried but failed to translate the AAA open world experience to a handheld. Liberation was quite restricted and cut back compared to its big brothers on PS3/360 yet still ran poorly, and Borderlands 2 on Vita was basically an unplayable slideshow. Compared to BOTW I'd say its a lot like how Mario 64 compares to previous failed attempts at bringing platforming into the third dimension.

I still don't see how Breath of the Wild on Switch is that different from e.g. Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation on Vita in terms of bringing open world games to handheld platforms.

I'm sure there will be handheld open world games that are more expansive and run better than Breath of the Wild in the future. It's the natural and continuous development and refinement of games.



Replicant said:
curl-6 said:

Those were valiant efforts for their time and hardware, but ultimately I'd say they were unsuccessful experiments that tried but failed to translate the AAA open world experience to a handheld. Liberation was quite restricted and cut back compared to its big brothers on PS3/360 yet still ran poorly, and Borderlands 2 on Vita was basically an unplayable slideshow. Compared to BOTW I'd say its a lot like how Mario 64 compares to previous failed attempts at bringing platforming into the third dimension.

I still don't see how Breath of the Wild on Switch is that different from e.g. Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation on Vita in terms of bringing open world games to handheld platforms.

I'm sure there will be handheld open world games that are more expansive and run better than Breath of the Wild in the future. It's the natural and continuous development and refinement of games.

Basically, I feel Liberation fails to deliver on the AAA open world experience it aspires to as it feels cut down and runs very poorly. Liberation feels compromised; BOTW does not.



Wyrdness said:
Bofferbrauer2 said:

What performances?

Just to make it clear, it wasn't the SNES and Genesis Megadrive! that killed the other computers, the PC itself did. Intel kept pushing the X86 further and further and after IBM stopped caring, other companies started to create their own graphics cards. Both ensured that no competitor in the computer market could keep up with the PC. Commodore went under, Atari tried to realign itself onto consoles with the "success" we know. Apple became a niche product for graphics and audio later on, but during the late 80's and early 90's, they actively tried to get computer gaming on the MacIntosh going strong like it did early on the Apple ][, but never got that known for that domain. However, none of this was the console's doing.

I gave the Amstrad as an example of computers other than PC or Apple of the time. But hey, 14M consoles sold better than 3M Amstrad, so consoles killed computer gaming, yay. Sorry, but that's patently false. Since you added up those two consoles (and I'll round it up to 15M with PC Engine and Atari 7800 sales), I'll do a similar thing with computers, with their sales during the lifetime of the third Gen, so 1985 to 1994, cutting off the sales before 1985:

Amstrad: 3M

Amiga: 5M

Atari ST: 2M

MacIntosh: 16M

Apple ][: 3M

PC: 158M

C64: 13M

Granted, those numbers are worldwide numbers, but only Apple computers and PC really were popular in the US. A part of those computers were used for professional reasons, especially with the MacIntosh and the PC. But if even just 10% of the PCs were used for gaming in Europe, which is a realistic number since Europe was the main PC market at the time, then those alone outsold the 3rd Gen consoles of the same timeframe.

What you've posted here doesn't debunk what I've said in fact it further highlights it as look at the numbers for a start outside of the C64 the home computers were outperformed by the new consoles in Europe and this was a time when they were meant to be on top in fact your WW numbers show that the console numbers in Europe were significantly higher than the HC's WW numbers if we go by WW numbers than it further shows what I've said. This is why Atari tried to realign with consoles because their time had come to an end and it took until the late 90s for PCs to reinstate that side of the market but they were still being dominated by consoles as gaming goes it's only later on in 00s when the market found itself as a mainstay again.

I showed WW numbers because I couldn't find European-only numbers in most cases. The Amiga stands at 4.2M in Europe only, the Amstrad is almost all European numbers, same for the Atari ST. That's already 9M just for those 3 platforms in Europe. While that's less than 14M, they are just a part from the European market. A small part, I might add.

Atari tried to realign to consoles because the Atari ST flopped compared to the main competitor, the Amiga - just look at the sales numbers I provided. Plus, it was very frontloaded (half of it's sales were done by 1988 while the Amiga peaked in 1991). It just couldn't keep up with the competition in the computer field. What's more, the ST was bleeding money. They tried to address this with the Falcon, but when it failed, they axed the entire Computer line in favor of the Jaguar, hoping it would have worldwide appeal, not just in Europe.

Also, if the Consoles would have killed the computers, then why did Atari kill it's 7800 successor, the Atari Panther, planned to release in 1991, early in development, resulting them to leave the console market for 2 years after they pulled the 7800 in 1992?

Your conclusion is just biased and slanted. I could prove just as well that consoles were a flop by comparing Amiga sales in Europe to PC their Engine sales and declare that consoles couldn't catch on in Europe. Out of those 158M

Finally, PC sales exploded in the early 90's. Out of those 158M, over 60 were just from 1993-1994, at a time when most companies already had computers. Why? Well, because some little game called Doom, that's why. Id Software at the time made $100,000 daily just from the sales of the $9 shareware episode unlocks. In other words, they sold over 10k games on a daily basis. The game was played by 10M people within 2 years of it's launch. Other games also put the PC into the frontlight, like the Monkey Island Series, Civilization II

Now tell me, how can a game sell 10M copies if the platform is dead?



Greatest launch title of all time? Well there can be only one answer to this question...

Half Life 2!

Fight me if you disagree but the launch of Steam was at least as important to the industry as any console launch and therefore Half Life 2 qualifies as a launch title.