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Forums - Nintendo - Did Nintendo save gaming with the NES?

 

Did Nintendo save gaming with the NES?

Yes 77 69.37%
 
No 34 30.63%
 
Total:111
Agente42 on 08 July 2020
Nautilus said:
Agente42 said:

For the US market? Yes. The major market to the date. And one of the pillars became videogame mainstream. 

For everywhere, really.

First of all, it's not just the "US market', but rather The Americas market. The whole continent.

Second of all, Nintendo proved with the NES that gaming was more than just a "toy" and thus not a fad. The market in the Americas had died, and the European one and Japanese would soon follow after, at the very least the home console(which is like 70% of the market as of right now, give or take), since most big players would not exist without Nintendo. Sega probably wouldn't make the genesis, since that was an answer to the NES, and Sony would also never going to enter the market as a result. And since MS created the XBox only to compete with Sony, that would be a no go.

Plus, like I said, most gaming staples were created by Nintendo and it's 3rd and 4rd gen consoles. Without them, I have no idea how many decades of gaming techniques and design behind we would all be.

yeah, I know. 



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Landale_Star on 08 July 2020

I don't think they saved gaming, but they played a massive part in shaping how it evolved. Gaming would have continued on without Nintendo though.



LivingMetal on 08 July 2020
Robert_Downey_Jr. said:
Nope. It was a crash but like the stock market gaming was always gonna come back. Nintendo happened to be at the right place at the right time and capitalized on a vacant market. The crash wasn't this long dark ages. It was like 2 years where things got saturated and new sales slowed down.

So it could be argued that console gaming "came back" because Nintendo was at the right place at the right time.  Therefore, Nintendo revitalized the console market.  So tell us All-Wise-One-From-An-Alternate-Timeline.  If the NES never existed, how was console gaming "always gonna come back?"  Hmm...



SvennoJ on 08 July 2020
Nautilus said:
Agente42 said:

For the US market? Yes. The major market to the date. And one of the pillars became videogame mainstream. 

For everywhere, really.

First of all, it's not just the "US market', but rather The Americas market. The whole continent.

Second of all, Nintendo proved with the NES that gaming was more than just a "toy" and thus not a fad. The market in the Americas had died, and the European one and Japanese would soon follow after, at the very least the home console(which is like 70% of the market as of right now, give or take), since most big players would not exist without Nintendo. Sega probably wouldn't make the genesis, since that was an answer to the NES, and Sony would also never going to enter the market as a result. And since MS created the XBox only to compete with Sony, that would be a no go.

Plus, like I said, most gaming staples were created by Nintendo and it's 3rd and 4rd gen consoles. Without them, I have no idea how many decades of gaming techniques and design behind we would all be.

Actually MS was behind the MSX platform which is the birthplace of Metal Gear Solid. The MSX did well in Japan and in parts of Europe, but for some reason failed in the USA.

Nintendo on the other hand was seen as the kiddie console where I lived with expensive cartridges and crappy conversions. NES and the 50hz curse... Sony dragged consoles away from the games are for kids stigma back to where they were with Atari, Commodore and Amiga.

Anyway, I was born in '74, been playing games since 1980 and never heard of the video game crash until I moved to NA. Apparently I lived through it without ever noticing it, happily gaming away.



javi741 on 08 July 2020
Bofferbrauer2 said:
Not even close

Only in North America did the videogame market crash. Outside of it, videogames were not just healthy, but a growing force even before Nintendo arrived.

What it did, was resurrect the North American Console market. Nothing more, but also nothing less.

Global gaming revenues significantly dropped between 1983-1985, so it wasn't growing and was far from growing. 



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javi741 on 08 July 2020
Mnementh said:

No. Let's see to your arguments.

javi741 said:

IMO yes Nintendo did save gaming, some people think they didn't for several reasons. But I'll counter argue the common reasons why people don't believe Nintendo saved gaming:

"If Nintendo didn't do it someone else would have"

-This argument completely based off of faith, and you'd need to have a ton of faith that a company would've entered a dead and dying video game industry after the crash. After the 1983 crash, literally no one wanted to have anything to do with video games anymore, from companies to consumers and retailers. If the video game industry was DEAD DEAD with no one, more specifically in NA interested in video games anymore, why in the world would a company attempt to market a video game system if no one is interested. To most companies, it wouldn't have made sense from a business standpoint as many companies and analysts at the time would consider that a company suicide. Even if a company did somehow have faith they could revive the gaming industry, the amount of huge hurdles a company would have to jump through just to get a video game system into retailers and in the hands of the consumer would likely have been too much for any company to handle. It literally took Nintendo to give NES's for free to retailers with Nintendo doing all the work when it comes to displaying the system to get retailers to finally stock the NES, retailers thought Nintendo was crazy for doing this, with even one store manager saying "It's your funeral" I'm sure 99.9% of companies would've given up on reviving the industry knowing all the hurdles in front of them. Even if that company SOMEHOW did revive video games(which is extremely unlikely), do you think now irrelevant companies like Atari or Sega would've kept it afloat and as big for so long?! They're now considered irrelevant companies for a reason, they're run by idiots. How about Sony & Microsoft, two companies who had NOTHING to do with video games until Nintendo got the industry big. They wouldn't have even attempted video games if it weren't for Nintendo's influence. 

"Only the console market crashed, people just moved on to PCs & Arcades after the crash, video games were still popular"

-This is a flat out false statement, video games as a whole were dead ESPECIALLY in NA. Most people completely moved on from video games, believing it to be a fad. Whether on arcade, PC, or console, video games were dead all around. Proof of this is looking at global gaming revenue between 1982-1985, where the ENTIRE video game industry revenue was dropping substantially all across the board, not just on consoles. I see most people try to argue that PC gaming revenue between 1982-1985 was going up which supposedly shows that video games weren't dying and that people were just moving from console to PC, however they ignore the fact that despite PC revenue going up, the entire industry revenue was drastically dropping globally which shows that the majority people left video games in general with the EXTREMELY SMALL minority moving to PC. Showing that video games as a whole were dying. Here's the chart that proves my point right here:

"The Video Game Crash Only Happened in NA, other regions were still playing games"

-I won't deny that the crash technically only happened in NA, however it's important to point out usually when a crash happens in a major market like the U.S, it's only a matter a time before the affects of the crash spread onto other regions, and with no real major console player in the other regions with strict quality control and less video game companies in general, it's likely the crash would've spread to the other regions as well. Also, while the crash did only happened in NA, global video game revenue was dropping globally, proving that the industry was declining overall and would've continued to go in a downward spiral if it weren't for the NES. The industry would be no where near as big as it is today globally without Nintendo, and that's a fact.

"If Nintendo didn't do it someone else would have"

You say: "After the 1983 crash, literally no one wanted to have anything to do with video games anymore, from companies to consumers and retailers."

This is obviously wrong. True, some companies that had entered the market from other sides like Fairchild and Mattel left the market and fell back on their core businesses. But with Mattel the story becomes already more complicated. Citing from Wikipedia:

"Former Mattel Electronics Senior Vice President of Marketing, Terrence Valeski, understood that although losses were huge, the demand for video games increased in 1983. Valeski found investors and purchased the rights to Intellivision, the games, and inventory from Mattel. A new company, Intellivision Inc, was formed and by the end of 1984. Valeski bought out the other investors and changed the name to INTV Corporation."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellivision#Competition_and_market_crash

Intellivision kept on going until 1990. Why did they stop 1990? Let's see:

"Licensing agreements with Nintendo and Sega required INTV Corporation to discontinue the Intellivision in 1990."

So Intellivision leaving the market wasn't a direct reaction to the crash, it was because of the new competitors Nintendo and Sega.

Magnavox was already since 1974 a subsidiary of Philips. Philips was handling the european distribution of Magnavox Odyssey² under the name Philips Videopac G7000. They followed that up with Philips Videopac+ G7400 and that with the Philips CD-i and the Philips MSX. So also Philips was willing to stay in the market. But Nintendo and Sega were more successful. So Philips ended up cooperating with Nintendo by providing their CD-i for the SNES.

Atari had difficulties as a company and Arcade part and home consumer part were split, but they stayed in the market. The Atari 7800 released in 1986, the Jaguar in 1993. But Atari was unable to compete with Nintendo and Sega.

So yes, without Nintendo we would've seen the market relived by Atari, Philips, Intellivision and Sega. Only the competition with Nintendo and Sega forced the other companies out of the market, not the crash.

"Only the console market crashed, people just moved on to PCs & Arcades after the crash, video games were still popular"

Interesting graphics you have, but it doesn't support your statement. Arcade revenue did also go down as you point out. But it moves independently of the home console market. Look at your graph, Arcade already started contracting as home console revenue was still climbing. Arcade also stopped at around it's former size, while home console revenue completely collapsed in 1985. But the most interesting part is that at the time both Arcade and Home console dropped, the PC-market grew. Only at the point the home console market recovered, the PC market shrinked again. It seems PC-market and home console market were vying for the same customers. As the console market crashed, the gamers went to PC.

But the revenue is much lower. True. But that the graph is about revenue somehow downplays the importance of the PC-market. As on PC was much more piracy (yes, believe me, I was there back then) and lower game prices (lots of Shareware and free demos, think that Doom released the complete first chapter (of three) completely without cost) the revenue is much smaller as on other platforms, but that hides the amount of players and games. As development cost and distribution is much lower on PC, it also was much more simple to have a sufficient business with this much smaller revenue. That is why this small revenue bar hides a plethora of games and players.

More importantly, as the entry hurdles were so low, the PC-market created life-long players and a lot of game developers.

So in conclusion: if the home console market hadn't recovered, the PC-market would've kept on growing. Slowly but solidly.

"The Video Game Crash Only Happened in NA, other regions were still playing games"

The world wasn't as globalized back then, as it is today. You claim the crash would've burned into other countries, but Nintendo itself is proving you wrong. The Famicom released 1983 in Japan, just as the crash was starting in the US. It didn't affect the japanese market, which hadn't for the most part even seen the american home consoles. But even besides Nintendo a lot of Japanese companies developed, mostly for Arcade (Konami, Bandai) or the differing PC-platforms available in Japan (Square, Enix).

In europe the american consoles had some presence, but the home console market never really started there until the Playstation. If there is no market to begin with, it cannot crash. Europe at that time mostly started playing on PC, as you can see with the plethora of european gaming comanies starting at that time with PC games:

  • Ubisoft: founded 1986 in France
  • Infogrames Entertainment: founded 1983 in France
  • Blue Byte: founded 1988 in Germany
  • Silmarils: founded 1987 in France
  • Adventure Soft: founded 1983 in the UK
  • Codemasters: founded 1985 in the UK

And so on. They all started in europe as PC-devs, as this was the viable platform, home console was seldomly a viable market in europe alone, even after the NES. This only changed after the Playstation.

So in conclusion: Japan and Europe had developing gaming markets on their own, for big parts disconnected from what was happening in the US.

-Point #1: You bring up the point that someone else would've revived the video game market, however none of the companies you mention actually did which debunks your argument that another company would've saved the video game industry. Atari released the Atari 7800 BEFORE the NES released nationwide on September 1986 yet it didn't do anything because Atari themselves had lack of faith releasing the 7800 with a lack of major games released for it, which proves my point that most companies wouldn't have taken as much risk and jump above enough hurdles to actually go through and save the video game industry. Plus the Intellivision didn't save the industry before the NES released and would never have cause the Intellivision didn't entice consumers enough since they were wary of video games after the crash. Plus Former Mattel Electronics Senior Vice President of Marketing, Terrence Valeski was using outdated video game sales numbers from 1982 BEFORE the crash happened to believe that there was still consumer interest in video games when their wasn't, he misinterpreted the industry and the main problem going on with the industry by using outdated numbers before the crash occurred, proof alone is found on the direct source of the quote you used which I'll link right here:http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/games/credits/intv.shtml#comments">https://web.archive.org/web/20170623113523/http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/games/credits/intv.shtml#comments

As for Sega, the only reason why they were able to release the Master System in NA in the first place is because Nintendo was showing retailers that there is still interest in video games after the NES did successful in the multiple test markets the NES released in, if it weren't for that the Master System wouldn't have been on store shelves in NA. Also, even if they SOMEHOW would go on to revive the industry, do you really think unprofessional companies like Sega or Atari would've maintain major video game market dominance for years to come. Let me ask you this, where is Atari and Sega right now? Yea.... I bet you get my point.

-Point #2 Majority of gamers did not move to PC like you make it out to be, barely anyone at that point owned a PC, far less than the amount of people who owned a console and we have to take into consideration that a good portion of people probably don't use their PC for gaming either. To prove this, in 1990 30% of American Households owned an NES while only 23% owned a PC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System You may argue back that PC gamers moved back to console after the NES released, however in 1985 WAYYY LESS than 23% of U.S Households owned a PC as PC was still new at the time and EVEN LESS played games of the PC. According to Statista, only 8% of U.S Households owned a PC, https://www.statista.com/statistics/184685/percentage-of-households-with-computer-in-the-united-states-since-1984/.The NES in NA sold about 34M units alone to be in 30% of American Household, Atari 2600 likely sold around 25M in the U.S, which would account for most likely 25% of American Households, the Atari 2600 Alone was more popular in people's homes than PC ever was in the early to mid 80s, where only 8% of Households owned a PC. The fact you use that people moved to PC is false and the huge revenue drop in gaming proves it.

Yes PC gaming does generate less revenue than console gaming, but you have to admit no way the drop would be that huge like it was, plus if PC revenue was so low due to piracy and other stuff, I'm sure there would be far less gaming companies who would want to make games with diminishing returns on PC, which would kill gaming in the long run eventually as gaming companies will continue to make small budget games since they can't afford to make AAA games on PC with little returns. We would also see much fewer gaming companies, these major companies blew up making games for console, not PC, PC gaming would remain niche with limited revenue.

-Point #3 You didn't see the console market crash in Japan because Nintendo saved it before it crashed, there were multiple signs before the Famicom released that the gaming industry in Japan was going to crash and burn, I'm going to take quotes from an interview from NES designer Uemura to explain what was going on in Japan, proving the industry was at a breaking point:

"In Japan, the issue was that toy stores didn’t know how to carry them. Toy stores didn’t carry televisions. So they didn’t see game systems as things they should carry, either. That’s why a lot of companies tried positioning their products as educational products, with keyboards, more like PCs than game systems. The thinking in the industry was that was the only way to go, back then. The only way to sell a video game was showing it on a screen, and it was a big ask of toy stores, making them purchase TVs."

"What we had was an LCD game crash. They stopped selling at right around the same time—Christmas of 1983."

https://kotaku.com/the-designer-of-the-nes-dishes-the-dirt-on-nintendos-ea-1844296906

I'm sure the Japan console industry would've crashed too if Nintendo didn't save it, companies couldn't even get consoles on Japan's store shelves ffs! 

Also Nintendo made gaming really big in Europe with the Gameboy, selling 40M+ over there, and again all the companies you mentioned wouldn't have made gaming big without console gaming blowing up.



invetedlotus123 on 08 July 2020
Doctor_MG said:
DragonRouge said:
I find the "Nintendo saved gaming" to be a too much US centric statement. Gaming was doing fine outside the US at the time of the crash.

The US, and more specifically NA, is the largest territory for video game console sales both right before the crash happened and even to this day. Every single generation North America proves to be the most lucrative when it comes to console sales.  You can bet that a crash in the most lucrative area of video games would have found it's ripples affecting other territories.   

Besides, I wouldn't say that gaming was doing fine outside of NA. Gaming in Europe was very niche in particular, and the Famicom literally created a market surge when many analysts in Japan were wary about the viability of video games after the "Atari Shock". Also, while it hit NA the worst, globally video game sales were at an all time low at the time of the crash. 

I don't agree with your statement that NA is THE most important market for gaming, at least not nowadays. Europe is where Sony sells the most units and Japan sure is a shadow of its former self but many franchises still reach huge numbers over there.

For games in a broader sense, considering mobile, PC and MMOs (that I believe should be a category of its own even if they are predominant on pc) China takes the crown nowadays. 



invetedlotus123 on 08 July 2020

And when talking about "pc gaming declining In early 2000's due to piracy" a complete new genre was rising meteorically by that time, MMORPGs. This genre alone made PCs have something consoles couldn't offer until ps2/gc/Xbox, even so, mmos on consoles weren't a fraction of the behemoth they were on pc.

EDIT: OK, mmos already existed before, but early 2000's were when home internet access was really on the rise. 



Doctor_MG on 08 July 2020
Conina said:
Doctor_MG said:

"Sega was pushing tech to enable its arcade games into the living room and would have continued to do so"

Again, the only reason they started to was because they saw that the gaming market was lucrative. In fact, the only reason they developed the SG-1000 was because they heard Nintendo was creating a gaming only console (they were just working on a PC at the time), and the Master System is a direct successor to the SG-1000. Also, if Nintendo had never gone into the North American market in the first place Sega likely wouldn't have attempted to either, at least not for a long while. Most analysts were saying that Nintendo's move into North America was an extremely bad move.

Sega was never going to be the replacement for Nintendo. 

"the only reason they started to was because they saw that the gaming market was lucrative."

And Nintendo had a different reason`?

"In fact, the only reason they developed the SG-1000 was because they heard Nintendo was creating a gaming only console"

Citation needed.

"Also, if Nintendo had never gone into the North American market in the first place Sega likely wouldn't have attempted to either, at least not for a long while."

Pure speculation.

"Sega was never going to be the replacement for Nintendo."

Prove it.

"And Nintendo had a different reason?"

No, but it was Nintendo who directly influenced Sega's view point about the potential success the home console market could have. Which leads us to:

"Citation needed."

Okay:Marley Scott "Q&A with Yu Suzuki" Retro Gamer December 2016, p. 61

"Pure speculation."

This entire board is speculation. Your comments regarding Sega coming into the home console market and filling the void of Nintendo is based off of complete speculation too. This is a completely unnecessary comment. 

"Prove it."

That's what I'm discussing right now. 



Doctor_MG on 08 July 2020
invetedlotus123 said:

I don't agree with your statement that NA is THE most important market for gaming, at least not nowadays. Europe is where Sony sells the most units and Japan sure is a shadow of its former self but many franchises still reach huge numbers over there.

For games in a broader sense, considering mobile, PC and MMOs (that I believe should be a category of its own even if they are predominant on pc) China takes the crown nowadays. 

Sony is the only console manufacturer that sells more in Europe than in North America. Here is the data taken from this website for the last few consoles:

Platform         North America         Europe

Xbox One             31.22                 12.03

Playstation 4        36.86                 46.44

Switch                 22.32                 15.23

Wii U                   6.23                    3.24

PS3                    29.42                  34.99

360                    49.11                  25.87

Wii                     45.51                  33.88

We can get into PC and mobile markets if you'd like. Both of those are incredibly hard to quantify though. You can't really look into units sold. Do you look at revenue? I suppose you can with PC, but mobile has a starkly different way to get revenue than consoles do. I prefer to do like for like comparisons regarding consoles, personally.