The Grudge List

[YellerDog]

Him too. Bowser Jr. was the goodbye letter. Waluigi is the luggage out the door.

[A Robot Bit Me]

Waluigi serves to remind us that they are never, ever, going to bring back the Koopa Kids.

Intelligent Systems brought them back in Mario & Luigi : Superstar Saga. They haven't quite been retired.

[Changeling]

Metal Gear Solid - Took console games away from fun and quirky, and pushed them towards imitation movie experiences.

Halo - Turned consoles into gimped PC's.

World of Warcraft - Turned PC gaming into a wasteland.

Crysis - Was too much too soon, and probably convinced every exec of a major publisher out there that PC gaming is dead.

Battlefield 2 - Let every publisher know that fixing bugs is for suckers.

Team Fortress 2 - Let's all play a game from 10 years ago all over again! I love it.

Well played, Schlep !

[NeoZeedeater]

Incidentally, I'm one of those people who disagrees with you, and my reasoning is quite sound and proper. I give Nintendo credit for saving gaming for the same reason Apple will go down in the history books for having popularized the MP3 player - sure, somebody else might have done it if they didn't, but they did.

You might not feel gaming needed saving because there were still arcades and Commodore 64s and Portugese people playing Dynamite Dux, but none of those things were a part of everyone's life in the 1980s the way Super Mario Bros. ended up being, and I'm not really sure anything else has been since. Gaming could have easily gone the way of collectible card games or comic books or tabletop rpgs or pro wrestling - big for a time, but faded back into a niche. It wasn't a fait accompli that they'd become a dominant form of entertainment. Nintendo baked the pie that all the other players came in to carve up in the 90s - Sega included.

Dude, I'm just defending the fact that gaming never died off, not making speculation.

Fact - There were hundreds of new video games released in North America in 1984 and 1985 that weren't on the NES. Gaming never died, just like it didn't die when the dedicated consoles crashed in the '70s. If something is alive and well then it doesn't need saving by definition.

Speculation -

Gaming could have easily gone the way of collectible card games or comic books or tabletop rpgs or pro wrestling - big for a time, but faded back into a niche.

That's a "what if" scenario. There's obviously no way to prove either way although personally I find it far-fetched to believe gaming wouldn't be popular or not exist at all. It remained popular in countries where the NES didn't do so well, after all. The NES isn't some magic box destined to keep gaming alive where others can't.

[YellerDog]

The NES isn't some magic box destined to keep gaming alive where others can't.

Isn't or wasn't?

Because it pretty much did, like it or lump it. There were hundreds of games being published, but who was buying 'em?

[dog$]

Except that it didn't.

The US Console market was suffering for the companies already in it, and that's it. Arcades were fine. PC Gaming was thriving. The market was still in steady growth in all other countries of the world as well.

[YellerDog]

I really, really don't think there were as many PC's as Nintendo's in households by the end of 1986.

Just sayin'.

[dog$]

I really, really don't think there was a single publisher of PC games that folded in 1986.

Singling out one component of the whole list isn't helping your argument, either.

[YellerDog]

Shit man, you could have bought a real Atari Jaguar at an EB ten years ago. Success!

There were hundreds of games being published, but who was buying 'em?

[dog$]

I'm not following you, there.