Any other console given the same kind of press could have done it.  I remember that I went on vacation with my family in the Summer of 1985 to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  And at Myrtle Beach, they have several outdoor amusement pavilions and amusement parks on the Strand.  To get to one of the amusement parks that had or has a rollercoaster called the Swamp Fox, you had to go through a building that at that time had a lot of arcade games in it.  In 1985, they had arcade games like Pro Wrestling, Gauntlet, and Tag Team Wrestling, so even after the console crash, arcade games were still in existance.

I enjoyed playing the arcade games that they had in that building that Summer, and it made me wonder about why console gaming had died (Note:  prior to the release of the NES, they still had gameshows on tv like one that came on ABC (I think it was ABC) on Saturday mornings where kids played videogames like Jump Bug for prizes, again that indicates that in that time period videogames weren't 100% removed from the mass consciousness).  Also, you could still find games at places like Showbiz Pizza Place.

Well, lo and behold, the Sears and JC Penny Wishbook catalogues arrived that fall, and they had the Nintendo Entertainment System in them, so videogames were back (although they hadn't entirely disappeared from the earth in the first place).  The NES also came with its own robot (a popular item to have in the eighties; I still have a Maxx Steele in the attic of my house) and a gun to play shooting gallery games like at Showbiz Pizza Place.

The world was ready to play games again and Nintendo just happened to be in the right place at the right time.  However, videogames had never really gone away to begin with and if a company like Sega had had the Master System in those catalogues like Nintendo had had the NES, then you still probably would have seen a resurgence in the videogame industry.

If you're going to discard Nintendo's success because somebody else would've gotten around to it anyway, then why can't we discard the successes of Atari, Sega, and Sony in the same way?

And Pitfall didn't introduce item collection to platformers. I explained how on the other page in case you missed it. Pitfall took everything from Donkey Kong, including the sound cue that plays when you die. I'm assuming it was a DK tribute.

Arcades survived the game crash because they only cost 25 cents to play. Atari games cost more, and sucked.

     We can't discredit Atari because without Atari there never would have been a video game industry since all attempts at making successful home video game systems prior to Atari (Magnavox;s Odyssey and Faairchild's Channel F were abject failures).  And without the 2600, Nintendo wouldn't have even had the idea of making more than one game for the NES.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Atari

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_2600

      Why are you repeating something you already said?  You're starting to sound as robotic as Maxx Steele.

  Atari games didn't suck.  The 2600's library was much better and more well rounded than anything on the NES.  In addition to Pitfall, River Raid, and Enduro that I mentioned before.  There were tons of games from Imagic, Atari, more Activision games that rivalled or surpassed anything ever seen on an NES.

http://www.classicgameroom.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=57&Itemid=161

I was repeating myself because I was giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you missed my last post, since you stopped responding. You claimed Pitfall introduced item collecting to platformers. It didn't. That was part of your argument that the Atari had better platforming than Nintendo, and did it first, which was what I was taking issue with, since it was wrong.

I was just talking about Donkey Kong and Pitfall earlier, but if you really think the whole 2600 library had better platforming than the NES library, you've gotta be kidding me. Super Mario Bros. 3 and Mega Man 2 blow away any platformer on any Atari system.

      I wasn't just talking about platforming.  I was talking about as a whole the 2600 had a much better and more well rounded game lineup than the NES.

Platforming Pitfall I and II rate up their with anything on NES

Adventure -- Games like Adventure, Dragon Stomper, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET ( a true gem of a game for its time that has been unfairly maligned over the years) were all there before Zelda.

Shoot 'Em Ups / Arcade Conversions -- With games like River Raid, Megalomania, Defender, Phaser Patrol, Battlezone, Robot Tank, Berzerk, Crazy Climber, Joust, Space Invaders, Frogger, QBert, Pac-Man, Ms. Pacman, Jungle Hunt, Star Raiders, Kangaroo, Vanguard, Phoenix, Centipede and on and on the 2600 wins easily.

Racers -- 2600 wins easily 

Sports -- although the 2600 sports games were often dissed because of the graphical superiority of the Intellivision games, what was on the 2600 holds its own with the best sports games on NES.

The 2600 was simply a better console between 1976 and 1984 than the NES ever was.

FU

agree. The SNES is the best console period

It took me till this post to get that it's a joke thread.

Part of me thinks that BTFeather is a magnificent troll.

Unfortunately, the other part of me is pretty sure he isn't.

Even those he lists the 2600 version of Pac-Man as a good game. Eugh.

Ooh, come'on, the library of the atari is nothing compared to the NES... That's also the reason why Nintendo is still in the console business while atari isn't... U just hate Nintendo lol... You make it sound like it's easy to make gaming popular again... You make it sound like it's easy and 0 risico for Nintendo to make the NES. You sir, are an epic fail.