josenieves1 said: MikeB said: Well everyone has his or her's opinion. IMO the NES was an ugly console and the bulk of its games were pretty damn ugly, sounded bad and were very simple in the sense of nothing much going on for its time. Of course many PC games around the time were even worse though. Even the original Mario Bros was much better on the C64 than on Nintendo's own console. Nintendo employs geniuses though with regard to making good games for all ages. I had Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr amongst my Coleco vision's best games as a young kid.   And now how ugly is a console is a defining factor in the quality of the games of such console.

 

Nothing, but IMO it demonstrated a lack of taste from whoever designed it. To make people feel better, I thought the PAL Snes looked much better and I actually bought that console for Super Mario World.

MikeB said: josenieves1 said: MikeB said: Well everyone has his or her's opinion. IMO the NES was an ugly console and the bulk of its games were pretty damn ugly, sounded bad and were very simple in the sense of nothing much going on for its time. Of course many PC games around the time were even worse though. Even the original Mario Bros was much better on the C64 than on Nintendo's own console. Nintendo employs geniuses though with regard to making good games for all ages. I had Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr amongst my Coleco vision's best games as a young kid.   And now how ugly is a console is a defining factor in the quality of the games of such console.   Nothing, but IMO it demonstrated a lack of taste from whoever designed it. To make people feel better, I thought the PAL Snes looked much better and I actually bought that console for Super Mario World.

Then why mentioning the uglines (or not) in the first place.  And..  taste is in the eye of the beholder.

 

MikeB said: @ stranne If they had only put a MIDI interface in the Amiga the fight with Atari would have been over before it started. Too limited usage other than amongst a niche, the Amiga audio chip was better to begin with. You can play MP3s on the good old Paula chip in pretty good 14 bit quality at 56khz stereo sound. MIDI interfaces could be added externally/internally. Real professionals got an Amiga anyway as Amigas were far better expandable with professional audio upgrades.

I know all about the tech side of it, I did have the Amiga tech bibles back in the day and played around with assembler stuff, auido and otherwise. I do agree that the ST was far behind technically, sound and otherwise.

But there is no getting around the fact that ST was the MIDI-machine in those days, and the standard MIDI interface had a lot to do with it.

MikeB said: Soleron said: The Amiga was more like a 'computer' than a 'console'. It was competing with the IBM PC... and lost. No computer since the PC has quite as successful - we still use MS-DOS/Windows derived systems, x86 CPUs and for some reason PS/2 ports. For games and multi-media uses the Amiga beat the PC on the market, but mainly in Europe also because TVs were better specced there (not per se requiring a monitor to be useful enough), because you couldn't really do any of that on a PC. It wasn't until the release of Doom in December 1993, the PC became relevant and PC users en masse upgraded their PCs with the latest and greatest technology available for the PC at the time. The MS DOS and hardware were too limited. Commodore went out of business in 1994 due to US patent laws prevented them to introduce their Amiga CD32 game console for the US (already made launch stock remained at warehouses) and huge PC division losses the years before this. After this games like Grand Theft Auto moved over to the PC, but still some great games originated on the Amiga such as Team 17's bestseller Worms. Some things which kept MS DOS PCs going on the consumer market: - Although better equivalent software was available for other platforms, Lotus 1-2-3 and Word Perfect became standards on the work floor. People wanting to take their work back home would often buy a PC. - IBM started out with very limited machines intended to mindless tasks in factories and easy tasks in the office, etc. Once the IBM clones arrived there were many different companies advertising their version of the PC. This kept the PC always in visibility for the consumer and allowed marketing from many different (often misinformative) angles. - With the release of Doom, heavy upgrading by PC users followed and more consumers started to buy PCs for in the home, although the Amiga could be just as easily expanded with PC-like graphics and audio cards the base specs of the Amiga was high enough so that most Amiga users wouldn't upgrade their harddware just to play the latest and greatest FPS, people already had 1000s of games and software to pick from which all ran well on minimal hardware.

 

I think you vastly overestimate the impact gaming had in the adoption of PCs over the Amiga. Not to vastly oversimplify, but as far as I understand it, the big thing came down to this: Windows. Apple invented such a thing with the Mac, MS stole it, PCs became a user friendly, every consumer device. Of course, it was he coupled with the fact that since MS was not owned by IBM, the OS wasn't proprietary, and could be put on every "IBM clone" (as I remember they were called) in the world back then.

darklich13 said: Factor 5's best game ever....  The Amiga verson of Turrican II

 

Wow that looks very metroid like. Especially with the morph ball and bombs. Hell, even the environment (later on in the video) looks very metroid like.

Seen the variety of games that were on the Amiga, it wold be great that Nintendo adds it to the virtual console. Such simple and fun games would be a hit on the Wii.

@ jalsonmi

Windows became really popular after C= was gone out of business.

With regard to Microsoft stealing the GUI basics from Apple, I don't quite agree. The mouse controlled pointer basics originated from the 60s and the Xerox Star desktop hit the market 3 years before Apple released their Apple Lisa.

Here a screenshot from the first GUI OS:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a8/Xerox_star_desktop.jpg

What Microsoft did literally but indirectly steal was stealing CP/M from Digital Research Inc. A programmer copied all the basic ideas from this OS (he even copied parts of the source code) and this handicapped version of the OS called Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS) he sold to Microsoft for 25K dollars, which then became MSDOS.

The more things change, the more they stay the same... And I'd say this thread is proof enough of the fact.

Technology only matters to those who care about it. Most of us are quite happy with any old game system as long as the games are fun. Debating which system is best on technological merits is missing the big picture entirely. Just as only the technophiles in the late 1980s cared about how good the Atari and Amiga computers were compared to each other while the NES cleaned their clocks, so too do the technophiles in the late 2000s alone care about PS3 vs. 360 specs, while the Wii consumes the market whole.

Sky Render said: The more things change, the more they stay the same... And I'd say this thread is proof enough of the fact. Technology only matters to those who care about it. Most of us are quite happy with any old game system as long as the games are fun. Debating which system is best on technological merits is missing the big picture entirely. Just as only the technophiles in the late 1980s cared about how good the Atari and Amiga computers were compared to each other while the NES cleaned their clocks, so too do the technophiles in the late 2000s alone care about PS3 vs. 360 specs, while the Wii consumes the market whole.

The Nintendo userbase up to at least the GameCube was dominated by small kids (source: Nintendo market research paper)

Buying a console for a kid, you mostly want it to be cheap, fun and cute.

Not gory like Alien Breed: Tower Assault

http://youtube.com/watch?v=B3dkPTcSWYg

Cute games like Superfrog:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5GQqdGzaARY

or Mr Nutz:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z8QAf-YYL5k

Much like many want an oridinary toy to be. However people do care about technology, gamers en masse upgraded their PCs to be able to play games like Doom, Quake, Half-Life 1 & 2, although the fierce PC upgrade trends seems to be over with better specced games on consoles (like the case for me), often a lot more time & effort has been put into developing console games.

The Wii will not consume the whole market, hopefully it mainly draws many new people towards the joys of gaming.

Your definition of "people" seems to be "internet forum-based gamers", for the most part. Which is a very very skewed demographic to say the least. I suppose one could argue that you're talking about "hardcore gamers", but again, that's a very skewed group to look at as they don't represent the majority at all. Certainly the "hardcore" demographic represents the most prolific buyers, but as for actual numbers of people in the demographic, they're highly outnumbered by the more traditional "non-core" gamer.

And I ask you this, as well: if technology matters to people, then why did the NES clean the clocks of its competitors' 16-bit systems, why did the PS1 dominate over the technologically superior N64, why did the PS2 completely own the market when both GameCube and XBOX outclassed it, and why is the Wii giving the PS3 and 360 a run for their money? You could effectively argue that the technology counts in the case of the NES and Wii in the sense that they bring something new to the table control-wise (standardized two-handed controllers for NES, motion controls for Wii), but what of the PS1 and PS2? They had nothing compelling over their competitors technology-wise. No, playing CDs and DVDs does not count, as they were not optimal for the task and few people would seriously look at a game system and think of it as anything but a game system. The idea of an all-in-one technology center is the fantasy of technophiles alone; the majority want a device to perform one task well, not many tasks poorly.

Technology is not a determining factor unless the market lacks differentiation badly enough that there's nothing else to go by. Games which appeal to wide demographics (or many games that each appeal to a different demographic) are what set systems apart and let them succeed over their competitors. And unique controls that throw convention into the wind and successfully try something new are important considerations, as well. But processor speed, sound capabilities, graphics rendering technology? Only to the overly dedicated gamer will these things factor into the decision about making a purchase.