No shit Sherlock, history happened as it did.

The problem is that people like you put hyperboles to inflate Nintendo’s effects on the market. Always over-praising them and dismissing every other factors that paint a different or rather, dare I say, a more complete picture. There is no denying the industry is what it is because of the NES. But to say the home console market was saved and would have ceased to exist if not for Nintendo is sheer cultist lunacy.

Only we actually do have data and history.  The US had a few years where the console market died.  During those years the home computer market filled in the void, especially the C64.  The C64 sold about 1/4 of what the NES sold a few years later.  Sure, I am speculating, but my speculation is based on what actually did happen. 

There are also examples, from other media, that show what happens when a successful medium crashes.  During the 30's and 40's, comic books were the most popular medium in the US, more than movies, TV, radio, anything.  It started out as a superhero medium, but gradually it started branching out to other genres, especially as kids grew up and wanted more mature content.  In the 50's, the government imposed heavy regulation on comic books via the Comics Code Authority (because of the mature content).  The comic book market tanked.  It did recover somewhat in the 60's with Marvel and Stan Lee, but it was never nearly as popular as it was before the government regulation, and the main genre has always been superheroes since the 60's.  Contrast this with comics in Japan.  They never had anything that seriously tanked their market.  The result is they have a very robust manga market that represents a variety of genres.  There actually can be key moments in the history of a medium that determine its fate permanently.

This idea that consoles would still exist, no matter what, is speculation that is not based on data.  The easiest way to answer the "what would have happened" question is to ask "what actually did happen".  In the absence of console gaming, computer gaming became the new norm.  Consoles were seen as a fad, much like motion controls are seen today.  Computer gaming was doing just fine.  Why wouldn't it become the permanent standard?

The real question is, "why do consoles have to exist?"  In a world without the NES, why would they have to exist.  Someone please make an argument more compelling than "it has to be this way", or "consoles totally wouldn't exist, yeah right".  Gaming would still exist, but it would find another medium.  Outside of Japan, most gaming in the 80's was being developed for a computer.  In Germany during the 80s, they were actually building a new board game market.  Gaming would still exist.  Why would it always have to be on consoles, when the console market appeared so unreliable?

I made plenty of points. But you dismissed them as “buat itz noat the YouWess”.

You made no compelling argument to explain why all the other console makers would have decided to close their businesses if the NES never happened. And here you give an example of an industry that you say tanked, yet is still alive to this day, making my points all the more valid.

Fun shit: Sega made the SG-1000 to move into people’s home more easily by having a product that’s more convenient and cheaper than the PCs of that time. Why would they have simply stop working towards that goal if the NES never happened?

And you know something else that’s funny? PCs coexist with consoles to this day, and always has. It was never a either/or between the two. Your argument that consoles would have ceased to be a thing despite companies wanting to make affordable and convenient products to bring the arcades and games from the expensive PC format into people’s homes is displaying a complete lack of judgment and logic.

One has to applaud that invisible data of yours. You keep bringing up the word “data”, yet provide none of it. It would be interesting to see you’d spin that data in the direction of your bias. 

your hypothesis is better than Hynad. Consoles gaming maybe go niche and arcade maybe flourish. Sega, Namco will rule the arcade market and UK computer games will reign the home market.  German moderns boardgames maybe go before.... but is a better proposition than consoles will exist without Nintendo in US. Not the same size and not the same way. 

You value his hypothesis because it sings the song that you like to sign to yourself. 

Regardless, nobody mentioned anything about size or “way”. That is not what is being discussed. Of course things would have been different, bigger or smaller, if history had been different. No shit, Sherlock. The NES propelled the console industry in a clear observed direction, no question about it.

What is argued is how the NES somehow saved an industry on the sole account that the US side of the market was struggling. As if the US was the only reason video games are a thing right now. That argument ignores every other regions in the world, as if the US was the center of it all. And without it, nothing can possibly exist. Your lot imply that because the market in the US was struggling, it means it can’t possible improve later on because of a console made by Sega or any other console makers, and none other could have ever achieved anything other than Nintendo?

Even if speculative, my argument relies on what the situation was outside of the regions affected by 83’s US crash. When despite the situation with the US console manufacturers, many companies elsewhere continued releasing new and improved consoles in regions where the market wasn’t in the same predicament. And you can be sure that consoles gaining traction in Japan meant that inevitably companies were always going to eventually bring them to the US market. Nintendo just happened to be the first to do it.

Just because history has the NES as the console that made the biggest impact of its era in no way means the other console makers had to go out of business if not for its success. That’s utterly ridiculous and comes from an obvious position of blinding bias that disregards any and all rationality.

SNES just edges out the PS1. Both have many of my all time favourite games, so I guess I give it to the console that has Yoshi's Island.

N64 takes 3rd spot.

Out of the "other" category, it's a tough pick for me between the Neo Geo and the Atari 2600.

Both have their charms and some great pick-up-and-play arcade action. NG obviously has way more advanced graphics/audio, but there's something about the 2600's simplistic pixels and sounds that has a quaint appeal even if I don't have nostalgia for it myself, never having had one as a kid.

For me the edge that the SNES had mainly boils down to the games aging better.  Both had the lions share of 3rd party support for their time, and some of the most iconic games of their time.  The PS1 however was involved in the awkward shift from 2D to 3D, which is why SNES games age so much better IMO.

During their time, what we had was the best of the best so it still felt natural.  Over two dacades later looking back however, SNES games still feel as good as they ever have while a lot of PS1 games feel dated and clunky by comparison.  Even from a visual aspect, pixel art looks so much better than early 3D games as well.  So with nostalgia removed, it only makes sense that the SNES gets the nod overall.

agreed.

Psone, besides great videogame, aged poorly.

Why is snes so high? Ps1 did more for gaming than snes ever could. The games on Ps1 are far superior and has more classics than snes ever could 

N64 was drab apart from small handful of games