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How Donkey Kong Toppled Atari

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Re: How Donkey Kong Toppled Atari

#31

Post by fleroviumna »

LogicFailsMe wrote: post #22
bluedino wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other big problem with the 7800 was it was mostly arcade ports. They didn't really do any original games. People were tired of the 5th home version of Galaga, Pac Man, and Dig Dug (even though the 7800 had decent ports, especially compared to the 2600, which it was also backward-compatible with). Nintendo came out with originals like Super Mario Brothers and Zelda, and then all the third party games...

Almost... Rescue On Fractalus and Ballblazer*, the first two titles out of LucasArts, were supposed to be lead titles for the platform. And the 7800 was technologically superior to the Famicom. But when has that mattered relative to the game library? See also the Jaguar port of Doom, which was the most faithful adaptation of its generation, written by Carmack himself, on a bizarrely advanced (2 RISCs plus an overcloc…

[dead]

Re: How Donkey Kong Toppled Atari

#32

Post by zzzeek »

bena wrote: post #24
zzzeek wrote: post #19

I was a total Atari kid and I still have my 2600 and my 800 on me. If Atari was the one distributing an NES like system IMO they would have just fucked it up. While I loved my atari devices, they were also extremely unreliable mechanically / electronically. The build quality of Nintendo devices (I own about 10 Nintendo devices going back to the SNES that's plugged into my TV with a modern HDMI adapter today) is world…

While the Famicom was decent, the NES had mechanical problems. The Famicom was a top-loading console, like the SNES, but had hard-wired controllers that came out of the back of the console. There was a controller port on the front that was used for the light gun peripheral. The NES had pluggable controllers, but the cartridge was front-loaded. The cartridge would plug into the bus in the back, then the whole thing wa…

in my Atari days, I went through half a dozen of those stupid joysticks, which broke easily as they were poorly designed and put way too much repetitive strain on the plastic insides that broke regularly.

contrast to my SNES controllers that still work today and feel more or less like they did literally 34 years ago. that blows my mind.

on the console side, the 2600 itself had some components go out which had to be replaced back in the day (remember when you'd take your console to the video game shop and they'd repair it?). The 800 itself didnt have any failures but the 810 disk drive was always a nightmare.

my comparisons are all to the SNES so admittedly these are all unfair comparisons, I never had an NES.

Re: How Donkey Kong Toppled Atari

#34

Post by tracker1 »

I remember the January when the gaming market really crashed... the Atari games for 1600/7200 were dirt cheap at Toys R Us... In retrospect, I'd have been happier with Sega at the time... They had more games that I actually liked.

Re: How Donkey Kong Toppled Atari

#35

Post by tracker1 »

staticman2 wrote: post #27
rk06 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you have it backwards . the game was "a Mario game", but it was called "Donkey Kong", so it comes under Donkey Kong franchise.

I don't know why we are making this arbitrary distinction between Mario games and Donkey Kong games. But if we are the main Mario franchise games are the "Super Mario" games. Donkey Kong is not part of the "Super Mario" series and his "Mario" is not "Super" .

Worth remembering Mario Bros (Not Super)... it's basically the combat mode in SM3+ but as a stand alone game.

Re: How Donkey Kong Toppled Atari

#36

Post by bluedino »

LogicFailsMe wrote: post #22
bluedino wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other big problem with the 7800 was it was mostly arcade ports. They didn't really do any original games. People were tired of the 5th home version of Galaga, Pac Man, and Dig Dug (even though the 7800 had decent ports, especially compared to the 2600, which it was also backward-compatible with). Nintendo came out with originals like Super Mario Brothers and Zelda, and then all the third party games...

Almost... Rescue On Fractalus and Ballblazer*, the first two titles out of LucasArts, were supposed to be lead titles for the platform. And the 7800 was technologically superior to the Famicom. But when has that mattered relative to the game library? See also the Jaguar port of Doom, which was the most faithful adaptation of its generation, written by Carmack himself, on a bizarrely advanced (2 RISCs plus an overcloc…

> And the 7800 was technologically superior to the Famicom.

I'd never heard this before, in what ways?

The 7800 seemed to be lower resolution and I don't really remember any examples of games that looked close to what a good NES game looked like. But even the basic ports like Galaga/Dig Dug looked better on the NES.

I know there were over 10 times as many games released for the NES and probably just as many more developers so they definitely had more work put into them.

Re: How Donkey Kong Toppled Atari

#37

Post by LogicFailsMe »

bluedino wrote: post #36
LogicFailsMe wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost... Rescue On Fractalus and Ballblazer*, the first two titles out of LucasArts, were supposed to be lead titles for the platform. And the 7800 was technologically superior to the Famicom. But when has that mattered relative to the game library? See also the Jaguar port of Doom, which was the most faithful adaptation of its generation, written by Carmack himself, on a bizarrely advanced (2 RISCs plus an overcloc…

> And the 7800 was technologically superior to the Famicom. I'd never heard this before, in what ways? The 7800 seemed to be lower resolution and I don't really remember any examples of games that looked close to what a good NES game looked like. But even the basic ports like Galaga/Dig Dug looked better on the NES. I know there were over 10 times as many games released for the NES and probably just as many more deve…

Famicom was 256x240 whilst the 7800, which was a console variant of the doomed Atari 1400, was 320x240. But to get more colors without doing fancy per scanline tricks, developers opted for 160x240 and you're not imagining it looking clunkier. So as a former demo coder, those scanline tricks were bread and butter to me.

Famicom was limited to 8 sprites per scanline, 7800 had 100 sprites, no limits.

But apparently, you're not wrong and I'm not wrong. Many NES cartridges came with HW enhancements and a few of the homebrew afterlife carts for the 7800 did as well.

But upfront, I thought the NES looked like a glorified Apple 2. The SNES OTOH was the first Nintendo console I loved.

Young me always chose the best technology for my task. Older me looks at the whole package. I miss the younger me.

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