The NES vs. its contemporary competition

[OneCrudeDude]

Because I want to play Metal Gear Solid 5™ and Grand Theft Auto 5™ as soon as they come out, without being spoiled of their story or gameplay until the PC version is made. There are also some games that are console exclusive such as Red Dead Redemption, and other miscellaneous games that are locked to either Sony and/or Microsoft consoles, but not Nintendo's.

[tepples]

Now I'm curious as to what other measures to avoid spoilers you consider practical. Do you also...

• Avoid reading reviews and buy games as they come out, poor quality be danged?
• Subscribe to all cable TV channels so that you can, say, watch Showtime and HBO original series as they air rather than months later once the DVD set of the season comes out?
• Stand in line for a day to buy a console on launch day so that launch titles' plots aren't spoiled for you by people who did manage to score a launch console?
• Move to the east coast of whatever country you live in so that games' plots aren't spoiled for you by people who got a copy at midnight on the east coast?
• Maintain homes in multiple countries so that plots of films, TV series, and games released first in another country aren't spoiled for you by people living in the work's country of origin?

Besides, other than RDR, what games are available on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, or both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but not PC? I want ammo against some of the "PC master race" people who inhabit a couple other message boards.

[MottZilla]

That's exactly the point though, Sega proved that it was possible to be successful despite Nintendo's policies, the argument was that the Turbogfx was hidered by them.

For the record, both systems launched at about the same time in the US, and retailers had assumed that NEC would completely crush Sega, to the point that Sega had a hard time convincing them to sell the system and when they did it was only until Christmas (well, until retailers saw how the systems actually performed). Look here:
http://www.sega-16.com/2008/03/interview-al-nilsen/

I said it was part of why the TG16 failed. Never did I say it was the sole reason. Another reason I've read is that in Japan where the PC-Engine was very successful, NEC marketed the system in the bigger cities primarily. They thought they could do the same in the US by just marketing it primarily in the largest cities like New York. There are other reasons though like many games that were released for the PC-Engine did not get released on the TG16. Some may have been related to Nintendo policies. I'd have to double check but I think there are no US releases by Konami. Konami released Gradius, Gradius II, Salamander, and ofcouse Castlevania Dracula X on the PC-Engine. Also I think only 1 Sega title of a few on the PC-Engine got released here, Space Harrier I think.

tomaitheous's PC-Engine NES emulation library is really impressive. I can't think of anything else like it. I remember working with one version of it to try to get I think it was Contra running on the PCE. I recall getting it working but it didn't support 8x16 sprites which were needed.

Back to the topic, unlike the Sega Master System the PC-Engine should not be considered part of the same generation as the NES. The PC-Engine does belong with the "16-bit" generation of the SNES, Genesis, and I guess the NeoGeo can be thrown in with it too. There are lots of people that like to call it an 8-bit system as a negative remark or to group it with the NES. These people generally don't know much about how any of these machines work. If you look at the game library you can see it's way beyond the NES and SMS. If you just consider what it can do versus the NES it's also obvious that it is the next generation.

[tepples]

The TG16 is way beyond the NES, but it's also way behind the Genesis. What the 68000 has over the 65C02 are fast multiply and divide (needed for certain physics and 3D calculations) and 16- and 32-bit addition as primitives (same). And though both have equivalents of a DMA unit, only the Genesis has hardware for compositing two background layers. And more RAM allows for more destructibility in levels; the stock TG16 is down there with the SMS and the original Game Boy in this respect, and I don't think it was easy to fit extra work RAM in a HuCard. Finally, some game designs need a third trigger button, in addition to I and II or C and B for jump and standard attack, that isn't as hard to reach as Select.

[Shonumi]

I want ammo against some of the "PC master race" people who inhabit a couple other message boards.

I can't comment on cross-platform games for Sony and Microsoft, but if you want ammo against "PC master race" types, look no further than the dearth of JRPGs on the PC compared to just about any console (ever). Personally, JRPGs are pretty much the life and blood of my gaming experience. I know Ys and some FF games are on Steam, but no Star Ocean, no Tales of XYZ, no Dragon Quest, no Rune Factory, no Kingdom Hearts, no Disgaea, and the list goes on for perpetuity. I love the fact that MGS5 is coming to Steam, since I have no reason to buy any next-gen console atm. If Square, Bandai-Namco, NIS, and Atlus went PC for even a fraction of their games, that would be the one thing to sway me in favor of PCs, and this is coming from someone who was playing the NES before 1 year of age.

[Sik]

The TG16 is way beyond the NES, but it's also way behind the Genesis.

This. It's pretty much sandwiched between the 3rd and 4th generations (in the same way, the SG-1000 mark I and II was sandwiched between the 2nd and 3rd generations).

Also I'm not sure if it's not fair to count it as competition, because when it launched it was technically competition to the NES (even if late one). The Super Famicom wouldn't come out until three years later.

I can't comment on cross-platform games for Sony and Microsoft, but if you want ammo against "PC master race" types, look no further than the dearth of JRPGs on the PC compared to just about any console (ever).

Yeah, but that seems to be slowly changing lately (albeit more from the hand of the smaller developers), so if that ends up panning out in the long term that argument won't work anymore. Also JRPGs really don't appeal that much to the West, so that also makes it kind of a pointless argument... you need to focus on AAA releases if you want to win any argument against fanboys.

[Shonumi]

Yeah, but that seems to be slowly changing lately (albeit more from the hand of the smaller developers), so if that ends up panning out in the long term that argument won't work anymore. Also JRPGs really don't appeal that much to the West, so that also makes it kind of a pointless argument... you need to focus on AAA releases if you want to win any argument against fanboys.

It's not changing significantly though, and there's no guarantee it'll expand. The companies involved now might pull out if sales don't rival console sales or at least meet their own internal expectation. The last time I checked, Sony and Nintendo were still Japanese companies, and JRPGs make quite a mint over in Japan. It won't make or break the market, but It's not something (in financial terms at least) that can be ignored. On a western level, sure it's easy to dismiss it, but not necessarily in the overall view. At any rate, isn't arguing with internet fanboys pointless to begin with? Their denial of evidence is, at times, second to none.

For the sake of maintaining the original discussion, for what it's worth, Wikipedia at least claims that the fourth generation essentially began with the PCE. Every other credible source I've seen seems to agree on that, though I'm willing to see contradicting sources. It doesn't surprise me that the TG16 was behind the Genesis given that the Genesis was partly a response to both the NES and the TG16.

[tepples]

At any rate, isn't arguing with internet fanboys pointless to begin with? Their denial of evidence is, at times, second to none.

Arguing with Internet fanboys helps me discover my own hidden denial of evidence. Without arguing with iOS fanboys like BasilBrush and PlayStation fanboys like CronoCloud on Slashdot, I could never have written this essay about why someone would even think about choosing a console over a PC.

For the sake of maintaining the original discussion

CronoCloud says people chose NES over C64 because C64 had too much of two things: 1. price, and 2. loading time.

for what it's worth, Wikipedia at least claims that the fourth generation essentially began with the PCE.

By that measure, the third generation arguably started with the SG-1000 and the nearly identical ColecoVision and CreatiVision. I see CV as 2.5-gen, PCE as 3.5-gen, and 3DO, 32X, and Jaguar as 4.5-gen.

[OneCrudeDude]

I've never heard of the CreatiVision, but research says it uses a 2MHz 6502. So how did that machine compare to the others, and the NES by extension?

As for consoles over PCs, your essay nails most of the points, but misses a critical one. Game availability. PC might have dozens of tower defense games on Steam, but consoles will get whatever game marketing has hyped up as being the second coming of Christ, which is any game from Konami, Rockstar, or Square-Enix. Those games will also not come to Nintendo consoles, and as a result Nintendo consoles are almost always supported by Nintendo's own games. The GameCube got Twin Snakes, a remake of dubious quality of a 6-year-old-game, but it was a drop in the bucket when the PS2 got MGS3 a few months later, a game many people wanted to play. No one bought a GameCube for a game they already played 6 years ago, but a lot of people bought a PS2 for MGS3, one of the most hyped games since San Andreas. To say third party games don't sell on Nintendo consoles is a lie, especially when all the evidence consists of games that appear as if they were deliberately trying to sabotage their sales.

[Shonumi]

Arguing with Internet fanboys helps me discover my own hidden denial of evidence.

I'm simply saying that with fanboys, it's hard to get anywhere, and all bets are off when it comes to having decent discourse. Getting into lengthy, irrational, impassioned "discussions" where the opposing side comes away as biased as before (or even more so) seems like something I'd want to avoid at any rate. It's certainly possible to meet fanboys that are well articulated and well-versed in what they believe, but those have been the minority in my experience, and ever so hard to find depending on the community and subject. I understand that talking about subjects when viewpoints differ helps strengthen your own position, certainly, yet arguing with some fanboys is a downright depressing experience. Perhaps this is just the cynicism I get when looking at sites like GameFAQs.

By that measure, the third generation arguably started with the SG-1000 and the nearly identical ColecoVision and CreatiVision. I see CV as 2.5-gen, PCE as 3.5-gen, and 3DO, 32X, and Jaguar as 4.5-gen.

It's not like there are definitive dates and periods established by accredited Game Historians or something like that, so everyone's free to construct their own sub-generations like that. That's kind of how I see things btw, internally at least. On paper though, or when I'm communicating to other, I keep my generations rounded up

[tepples]

consoles will get whatever game marketing has hyped up as being the second coming of Christ, which is any game from Konami, Rockstar, or Square-Enix.

I tried to leave out points that were a wash. PCs get their own second coming mega-games, just from different publishers. Blizzard games come to PC first and often only. And if Valve ever managed to count to 3, it'd be on PC first. These are the games that cause people to turn an office PC with an Intel IGP into a gaming PC.

Anyway, for ColecoVision vs. CreatiVision, a 6502 clocked at f Hz is usually considered equivalent to a Z80 clocked at 2f Hz. So yes, a tie, except for marketing.

[Sik]

By that measure, the third generation arguably started with the SG-1000 and the nearly identical ColecoVision and CreatiVision.

Well, to be fair, the SG-1000 was launched the same exact day the Famicom did (which is also part of why now it feels odd that Sega isn't in the console market but Nintendo is, they entered at the same time).

[tomaitheous]

A Z80 also tends to need less instructions to achieve the same things as the 6502. It's like the comparison between the 68000 and the 65816, the former wastes cycles like crazy in comparison (even worse than Z80 vs 6502), but it also needs to do a lot less work and is easier to program for.

My experience is more from the GBC (not exactly a z80), but from what I've looked over of the z80 - there's still a lot of register loading and unloading over head. I mean, it's similar to the 68k in how you do more register-register operations, but it has quite a bit fewer of them. It seems crippling for its type of design. There were also some missing direct memory address modes that would have speed it up a bit. As far as easier to program for, maybe for beginners or new to the processor. But once you've gotten use to any of these processors - everything becomes easy. If you mean tedious, then that's something else. Some people find writing 65x code very tedious (the CLC/SEC, the Accumulator style arch, etc), but I find the same tedium in z80 code as well. The small amount of address registers on the z80, compared to the 65x, ~always~ annoyed me.

I did GBZ80 before I did 65x, and I found it (GBZ80) quite easy to learn right off the bat. When I jumped over to 65x... I though it was the weirdest thing I had ever seen (and I had done x86 assembly) But that lasted all about a month, then it was like normal (as you can get for assembly). I did 68k after that, and it was breeze. I did v810 and PIC16xxx after that. 16xxx was a wake up call - thee worse ISA I'd ever seen. I decided never to complain about processor ISAs again. There's NO stack on that thing. Doing function calls is tricky. It can nest two or three of them max, outside of that you have to do a software stack - but the memory access and banking system make this a real pain in the ass to do. Certain logic is missing (flags and such) and so you have to write all this extra code to give back that functionality. And I don't mean just a few instructions either ;>_>

[rainwarrior]

tepples, when I was professionally involved in this, the canonical answer to why most publishers preferred to release on consoles, or at least release first on consoles, was piracy on the PC.

[OneCrudeDude]

While it's much more likely for piracy to happen on PC than on consoles, isn't it still rather uncommon? Then again, I don't expect PC game sales to be particularly high, if anything, most non-Valve game sales seem to be rather balanced across the board. So the piracy ratio would be rather high given how few people actually buy games. Non-Nintendo consoles are fairly similar, but they have higher emphasis on the most hyped game of the month instead. Nintendo consoles are barren wastelands, and when they do get third party games, they get hilariously delayed non-canon spinoffs with a chibi art-style that plays nothing like the series it is named after, alienating fans to the point of no one but people who own Nintendo consoles being interested in their games. And if by some twisted twist of fate those games do sell well, that means nothing to the publisher.