"Video games today are a race to the bottom."

Right, my bad, I should have clarified that it was good for the first 4-5 years, but then had to be replaced (like any other console) and not keep alive for a decade with an endless array of the crappiest games ever seen by mankind.

Indeed, but the amount of crap back in the day was immense.

Even Quaker Oats and Purina were making games for the 2600.

You dont see stuff as lame as that these days...

 

The funny thing is the tech guys TOLD the management at Atari and were pretty much ignored when they said the 2600 would be obsolete and a new console needed in X years.

 

Becos those are bad news for the execs...

Launching new products, even if they're just the new version of an already existing one, is a pain in the ass for the company, specially money-wise.

SEGA went bankrupt due to that, and Xbox showed MS that launching a console is expensive as hell.

Plus at the time (70s-80s) most execs from tech companies came from completely unrelated industries (sculley from apple came from pepsi, and commodore's new president was from US steel) so they couldnt figure it out why a console should be replaced so fast.

After all, how many new types of metals you see in a decade? or soda drinks for that matter?:lol:

 

Crap has been apart of the industry and will always be.

I mean ***king yaris for XBLA? (thank god it was free).

Nes was loaded to the brim with this stuff as well.

 

I miss Pepsi Clear.:crying:
(And Pepsi Spice for that matter.)

 

I don't think Bushnell is necessarily talking about the quality of games but rather the content... Just look at the content of today's most popular video game franchises.

 

How dare you guys diss Chuck E. Cheese. Jurassic Park ride FTW!!

 

That (yaris) was an advergame, is meant to be a kind of product placement. Plus it was free, while atari games were supposed to be the real deal, mostly cuz you had to pay for those.

About the Nes, is true, but the ratio was much lower than in the 2600.

By today standards, paying for the 2600 would be like paying to get SPAM all the time.

You mean violence and sex? is the entire media dude...

When I was a kid (and I'm not that old) hearing a profanity like "damn" on tv was pretty weird, but in the last 15 years we have gone from that to the very edge, where the only stuff left is the list of words the FCC say cant be used on Tv.

About porn, even during the early days of the net getting porn was a billions times more difficult than what it is today. Now most tv series are a nipple away of full frontal nudity.

About VGs, games with "attitude" of the past like Sonic or Megaman are considered kiddie stuff by today standards. Back then girls on videogames didnt even had a bust line, and now we have unlimited boobies thanks to DOAX...

My point is: if games become mainstream then they'll be just like the rest of the media.

 

You know that many Chuck E. Cheeses take their arcades out back and break them insted of reselling them.

:crying:

 

Yeah I knew that, reason why I hate the bastards...

 

The machine came out in 1977 and the video game crash happened in 1983... I'm glad you can count or are you using base 6? The Atari VCS didn't start to sell well until 1979, a whole two years after release and a year after Nolan Bushnell left Atari because management disagreed with his policies. It had it's peak in 1980 but still sold well for the next two years.

Indeed, this is why the video games crash happened. Too many poorly rushed out games that seemed to play like the others.

Still calling 99% of all Atari VCS crap is a little harsh, there are some great little games which are still playable now including Pitfall, Yars Revenge, Warlords, Centipede, Freeway, Adventure, Indy 500, etc.

 

E.T. anyone?

 

So? Again not under bushnell's watch of atari.

Should we all blame and discredit miyamoto for all the shit nes games?

I bet if we went and looked at nes games with revisionist eyes we can easly claim 99% of the games were also shit. Hell I grew up loving TMNT 1 NES but playing it again today, the game is really crappy and full of **** design.

Hell look at the GBA (what I feel is the best handheld to date), most of it's library was pure trash and licensed crap. Hell I contributed by coding a few of them (i'm responicble for one of the cinderella games).

 

Every system has its turd games. But some stink alot more than others. The video game crash was probably helped because the hardware was shitty and not really going anywhere. Ever since there has never been a stop in upgrading technology which is a good thing. But more importantly the Atari was too shitty really. You just can't make that many games that are much fun when the hardware sucks so bad.

NES has alot of great games but alot of limits, and as you go on more things are possible. The market won't last when you aren't doing anything somewhat fresh. It doesn't have to be completely new but you mainly can't be too similar.

 

Enough with the fucking 2600 bashing, god damn it.

Not ONE of us would be discussing games at this forum were it not for the 2600. Yes, developers made lots of crap and killed the industry... But that system was amazing for its time.

I mean, we could bash the NES for having 90% crap, or the Mega Drive, or the PSX and PS2... BUT IT'S NOT THE FUCKING SYSTEM'S FAULT.

Developers made shit back in the day, and make shit now. AND IT STILL FUCKING SELLS.

Blame morons and marketing.

... damn it!

 

While i'm still a massive fan of the 2600 (adventure,pitfall and many others still ***king rule to this day), atari has 1 fault and that was no quality controll like we have now. As well some companys found out how to make thier own carts so they could bypass atari completly.

I don't think it would have been like that if there was someone prior, so its kind of hard to knock atari for it when they were the first and quite easly discovered why it's important. Tho quality check does not mean you wing out crap, it does at least try to hold some standards (this is why we dont see XXX games on consoles).

 

I just got an Atari, fun stuff.

 

Thats a matter of context, like every 16bit game today looks like crap if you compare it with what we have now.

The crash of 83 was becos games sucked back then as much as they do now.

TMNT was fairly good or just average at the time, and today suck, but ET sucked from the very beginning

 

Superman 64 sucked from the very beginning (most put that up there with ET).

The crash of 83 is not a black and white "it was X/bushnell/atari fault." There was quite a few things that came to gether. The problem with this thread is quite a few (like you) look back and think all the 2600 was about was ET which is just crap. As well people feel the need to blame him for all of atari's problems when he jump ship long before things went to hell. Bushnell does deserve a lot of credit for stuff he did and what came about as a result of atari. Even something as common ground as 3rd party was birth through internal fighting at atari (activision was formed by former atari employies). Bushnell's way of doing things is also a reason why the video game industry does not work like other industry where it's just all guys in suits. Bushnell is also a big reason why we even have a video game industry today in the first place. As well is a big reason for the arcade industry.

But again all this topic cares to do is blame bushnell for all of atari faults which happen after he left. If bushnell stayed in full controll of atari and never sold out way back when, we probably would have a far rosier picture of atari now a days.

But what ever. blah blah blah, 2600 has no classics because it's not nintendo with mario blah blah fanboyism jerk off.

 

Well, how many really good movies come out every year? Two or three, verses how many turds? Same with games really. It was like that back in the day too.

Seems to me the movie industry is probably the closest analogy one can find towards games, and it looks like games are entering an "exploitation" period, similar to how movies did back in the 70s (when you were first allowed to swear, show gore, and boobies in flicks.) Yeah a lot of garbage came out in the 1970s, but there were some really good movies also (Starwars anyone?)