31 Aug
2015
31 Aug
'15
11 a.m.
On 8/31/2015 12:56 PM, ethan at 757.org wrote:
You're right re the expectations of that
time. It's very difficult to put
oneself back in that naive mindset, to
remember how things *first* struck us.
That said, however, I'm still quite
happy playing with my Bally Arcade... ;-)
- J.
"3.5
million of the 4 million
produced were sent back to the
company as unsold inventory or
customer returns. Despite sales
figures, the quantity of unsold
merchandise, coupled with the
expensive movie license and the large
amount of returns, made E.T. a major
financial failure for Atari"
Thats not good for Atari, but that
doesn't make it the worst game ever.
I agree with those who say Pac Man...
I mean it looked nothing like the
Arcade and it sounded like they
sampled a rubber band.
Not a good game at all.
But it was the Atari 2600, at that day
and age I don't think there was an
expectation that the game on the home
system would look like the arcade? It
was from the era of tennis tv games
and such? It had a mouth, and a pass
thru, and ghosts and dots.
Colecovision and others started to
change expectations. I guess it wasn't
too long after ColecoVision that Atari
8 bit computers and that brought with
it pretty good ports of Arcade titles
-- I was probably late to the 8bit
atari (800XL here) I guess the people
with the 400/800 were first to have
arcade-ish gameplay. The 8bit
computers still isn't as same as
playing the real arcade PCB though.
Just closer.
That day I got the NES..... I think I
hit reset 100 times over and over just
to hear the intro music from the
Gyromite cart. It had clear drumbeats!
And multiple part music. It was so
good. The reset button felt nice and
quality even.
--
Ethan O'Toole