The game boy was about but where I lived I didn't use one until my older brother got one for poke on yellow.
People will have had them I just never got exposed to it so to speak.
Most people I knew with handheld games were using the tiger? Things
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The US-centrism of gaming culture and history (and what parts of gaming history/culture you're a part of that are unknown globally?)
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People will have had them I just never got exposed to it so to speak.
Most people I knew with handheld games were using the tiger? Things
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Ah, man, Spider-Man 2. It was a totally different (and much inferior) game on PC, made by different developers and probably with a very short development time to boot. You had to point a mouse cursor towards pre-placed 'web connection' points over the city, and there wasn't a lot of those web connection points around. Due to the prevalence of PC gaming and difficulties with getting consoles, haven't played a Spider-Man game with more realistic swinging until Ultimate Spider-Man got a PC port from consoles.
Oh, i forgot to add. May be
The Golden Age was centered around computer games, not arcade.
The Golden Age was centered around computer games, not arcade.
The US/West downplay the importance of mobile gaming in videogame history because they think these are not real games, or it is too microtransaction heavy, but these opened a new gateway to people from poor countries who can't afford to buy a PC or console.
And also was the gateway for more women into the gaming sphere. I dated a girl who wasn't very into vidoegames at the beginning but she loved cute mobile games like Doodle Jump.
It's always funny to me when people complain about US-centrism in gaming... and then go on to explain that NES wasn't a thing in Europe, when it's mostly a UK situation.
The situation in Sweden was quite fascinating. There's a documentary on it, but basically a local electronics shop owner got word of the Game & Watch series and wanted to import them, so he travelled to Japan and managed to somehow convince Nintendo that he was a big distributor and landed an exclusive contract. This became Bergsala, which is still the official distributor of all things Nintendo in Scandinavia. Despite such a tiny market, Bergsala even managed to secure some European exclusives like Mr Gimmick and the exclusive licensed Bamse game, as well as a Sweden themed Game Boy. As a result of some huge efforts by Bergsala, the Master System barely got any traction in Sweden and the 8 bit war was mostly between NES and the C64, later replaced by the Amiga. Further, the Mega Drive also limped along but was basically killed quickly by the SNES.
The situation in Sweden was quite fascinating. There's a documentary on it, but basically a local electronics shop owner got word of the Game & Watch series and wanted to import them, so he travelled to Japan and managed to somehow convince Nintendo that he was a big distributor and landed an exclusive contract. This became Bergsala, which is still the official distributor of all things Nintendo in Scandinavia. Despite such a tiny market, Bergsala even managed to secure some European exclusives like Mr Gimmick and the exclusive licensed Bamse game, as well as a Sweden themed Game Boy. As a result of some huge efforts by Bergsala, the Master System barely got any traction in Sweden and the 8 bit war was mostly between NES and the C64, later replaced by the Amiga. Further, the Mega Drive also limped along but was basically killed quickly by the SNES.
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Speaking of which, due to the prevalence of computers and the fact that we didn't grow up in a culture where NES was sold in a 'boys' section, it feels like 'video games are for boys' didn't get as much prevalence at least in Eastern Europe (not sure about other places where computers were more of a thing).
My mom played the hell out of Sierra adventure games, Age of Empires, Caesar, and a lot of other stuff, as a more personal example.
But even my online interactions with people from the region involved a lot more women interested in all kinds of games, from more casual to more hardcore ones.
Here in Costa Rica, most people game either on Nintendo or Playstation hardware. Those with PC and/or Xbox are on the minority.
However, we're also a country with incredible high levels of piracy so back in the day, consoles like the PS2, the Wii and the 360 were incredibly popular as it was easy to crack those systems to play pirated games.
One thing that doesn't translate well from the US are sports games that are not called FIFA. Nobody here cares about Madden, UFC, NHL, ATP and/or Formula 1. If it's not soccer/football, is as good as non-existent.
However, we're also a country with incredible high levels of piracy so back in the day, consoles like the PS2, the Wii and the 360 were incredibly popular as it was easy to crack those systems to play pirated games.
One thing that doesn't translate well from the US are sports games that are not called FIFA. Nobody here cares about Madden, UFC, NHL, ATP and/or Formula 1. If it's not soccer/football, is as good as non-existent.
There's a lot of really interesting stories of early games distribution deals that had major impact. It was a weird time, here you had major international companies commissioning teenagers coding in their bedroom to make ports for various platforms.
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It's generally speaking a fallacy to talk about Europe as a single region. Even me defining that I talk about 'Eastern Europe' is potentially ignoring specificities of each particular country.
(but where I'm from, Nintendo stopped existing after NES, which only existed as a bootleg console called Dendy to begin with, never officially distributed, and only starting with DS did Nintendo sort of start appearing on the market officially)
I don't know a single person in Brazil who has owned a NES. I literally had never heard about it until I was a teenager reading forums online, I had no idea where those games from Super Mario All Stars had come from. The Master System on the other hand was incredibly popular.
In the subsequent generation, the situation was inverted, the SNES dominated the market (although the Mega Drive was still popular). It's also interesting to see people discussing the N64 and Mario 64 because they will always talk about the wow factor of seeing a 3D game for the first time, but I think very few people had that in Brazil because the N64 arrived much later in the country, by which point everyone had already seen Mario 64 and other games in magazines, and/or had played other 3D games on PC. I know was I still playing my SNES well into 2000, when I sold it to finally buy my N64. By that time I had read so much about 3D games that they were hardly a novelty, even if I had never played one, so I never got that first shock.
In the subsequent generation, the situation was inverted, the SNES dominated the market (although the Mega Drive was still popular). It's also interesting to see people discussing the N64 and Mario 64 because they will always talk about the wow factor of seeing a 3D game for the first time, but I think very few people had that in Brazil because the N64 arrived much later in the country, by which point everyone had already seen Mario 64 and other games in magazines, and/or had played other 3D games on PC. I know was I still playing my SNES well into 2000, when I sold it to finally buy my N64. By that time I had read so much about 3D games that they were hardly a novelty, even if I had never played one, so I never got that first shock.
Always have to link Kim Justice's excellent video covering the UK side of the console wars when this topic comes up.
www.youtube.com
The Sega vs Nintendo War: A Very European/UK Perspective (Over 100 Games!) - Kim Justice
#sega #nintendo #documentarySega vs Nintendo! SNES vs Genesis! The Console Wars! NES vs Master System! Or, in this case, the Super NES vs The Mega Drive,...
www.youtube.com
'The west' doesn't really work when talking about games historically either, when it's often used interchangeably with 'the US' and there was enough variation between region codes, let alone different continents. Even talking about 'PAl' releases isn't always accurate given the somewhat ad-hoc distribution at the time. Even now, those of us in western countries tend to think distribution and regions has been stable for a long time as console distribution standardised across 3 relatively wealthy territories, but they still don't cover huge swathes of the planet. I always like hearing about how things work in other countries.
I'm not 100% if this counts but I'm from East Germany original and then went to the West when the wall came down. My big gaming memory is something American gaming culture has no idea of. Every damn game having robots instead of human enemies, oil/green goo/some other thing instead of blood, all kinds of other censorship.
Game censorship was a big, consistent topic of my 90s gaming youth that was always a thing. We had to jump through hoops ordering some other versions for our modded Playstations to get the uncut versions and so on.
Game censorship was a big, consistent topic of my 90s gaming youth that was always a thing. We had to jump through hoops ordering some other versions for our modded Playstations to get the uncut versions and so on.
Great video. Seen it before but it's amazing that the Master System got a port of Streets of Rage 2.Always have to link Kim Justice's excellent video covering the UK side of the console wars when this topic comes up.
The Sega vs Nintendo War: A Very European/UK Perspective (Over 100 Games!) - Kim Justice
#sega #nintendo #documentarySega vs Nintendo! SNES vs Genesis! The Console Wars! NES vs Master System! Or, in this case, the Super NES vs The Mega Drive,...
I wonder how much of that is based on language? This is an English speaking forum and around 1/3rd of English speakers are American so it seems like a lot of people here are coming from that perspective in regards to gaming history (or even other stuff in the Etc. section). Like I would imagine the real Brazil-centric discussions of video games probably take place in Portugués speaking forums for instance, although that's just an assumption on my part.
What I have learned of gaming history in other countries is fascinating, but I feel like outside of what was going on in Japan and the UK my knowledge is pretty limited. I definitely appreciate everyone sharing their stories here.
What I have learned of gaming history in other countries is fascinating, but I feel like outside of what was going on in Japan and the UK my knowledge is pretty limited. I definitely appreciate everyone sharing their stories here.
This reminds me of the hilarious Kickstarter pitch video from Double Fine
Tim Schafer: "These days it seems like adventure games are almost a bit of a lost art form, only existing in our dreams, our memories and... Germany"
I'm just going by personal experience. The crash only happened to consoles. Arcades we're still thriving and in every mall.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the Master System was still getting games in Brazil even after the PS2 launched.
Yes, this is such a HUGE blindside that even exist in this forum. Mobile games exist and is a huge part of the industry, maybe even bigger than console/PC. English speaking media tend to treat mobile games as some kind of side stuff that isn't usually the "main" product and not something real. Free Fire has like hundreds of millions of monthly active users and most of them came from countries like India or Indonesia.
This is incredibly fascinating - thanks for sharing! Where was this list from?
Outside of internet cafes and such, "gaming culture" felt very idiosyncratic, growing up. My only real lifeline to it was to American and British "gaming culture" via gaming magazines. Actually, while I think I have a better sense of how things are throughout the world today, I think any insight I had into British gaming culture kind of evaporated once gaming magazines stopped being a thing.
I don't think there's one specific version they stick to, afaik the PS5 version uses PES 2021. I won't link their site because it's probably illegal.
I will say that the main appeal is that the game is always updated to match anything that happens with brazilian football clubs.
I don't think it's that appealing for anyone outside Brazil, but people here still love it, specially those on PS2.
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that's really cool. i don't follow the brazilian leagues but it appeals to me as someone who was super into PES on PS2 and used to play imports of winning eleven before the western versions came out, hah.
Afaik no, definitely not during the launch of the ps2 here at least. last licensed game i can remember was a footie game (of course) in 1996, so into psx era, but not ps2. Mega Drive was the one who kept getting yearly Show do Milhão (popular quiz game with prizes from brazil) till the early 2000s
The story of Bergsala is pretty interesting. It basically that of a self-professed con artist that brought Nintendo stuff to Sweden really early on (1981), which is way before Nintendo of Europe ever existed (1990). They have exclusive nordic distribution rights for Nintendo stuff to this day, which is one of the reasons all Nintendo stuff is more expensive here.
The early history of ARM and the Acorn Archimedes. My school got one of the first ones (it ran Arthur), and I was around in the early Acorn Arch BBS scene (TWOC and Noah BBS plus AAUG). If you look at where ARM is now (everywhere), I still have an ARM-2 based A440 in the basement that works perfectly. It was an amazing time with small 1-2 person outfits making hardware and software for it.
www.nostalgianerd.com
Acorn Archimedes A3010 Review - Nostalgia Nerd
Watch the Video From the BBC Micro to the Acorn Archimedes. This is a full system review of the Acorn...
www.nostalgianerd.com
This. We were on a totally different timeline. And it was awesome. Like other 80s kids, I learned to program and it was joyous. We also learned the value of patience (and anger management) thanks to cassette decks. Didn't get any of that with a NES.
Also the games I have nostalgia for are totally different to our American friends. I was playing Paradroid, The Last Ninja and Monty on the Run. Not Mario, Kirby and Zelda.
Yeah I can safely say Nintendo were always pretty big here in the Nordics. It wasn't until Playstation came along that the market began shifting the other way. Nowadays when various conventions bring the remaining retro retailers of the country out of hiding from the online retailer space, there's no shortage of Nintendo games and memorabilia across all generations.
They were there and making money, but American arcades actually began a fairly stead decline during the crash years that led to profits cutting in half before they recovered along console sales in the late 80s.
Speaking from my own perspective (born in Finland in 1990) the 80s and early 90s were all about computers. C64, Amiga and especially DOS computers. Demoscene was quite big here too but I didn't really experience any of that. The DOS era of 90s also produced a thriving Finnish freeware and shareware scene. Remedy had their start during that time with Death Rally and while most of the Finnish freeware DOS games weren't widely circulated globally, some of them also got international acclaim, best example would be Liero. I also pity the non-Finnish speakers who never got to experience the fantasy gladiator management series Areena in it's old glory, since as far as I know the best entry Areena 5 from year 2000 was never translated into any other languages.
When it comes to consoles Nintendo had presence here since NES, but console gaming didn't really get that big until PS1 and N64 - I don't think I personally know a single person who would have ever owned any Sega consoles but they were marketed here too. Gameboy was a thing of course, but mostly thanks to Pokemon. When it comes to later console generations, Finland has been Playstation dominated territory for the most part, but lot of people who have owned every other Playstation had an affair with Xbox with Xbox 360.
When it comes to consoles Nintendo had presence here since NES, but console gaming didn't really get that big until PS1 and N64 - I don't think I personally know a single person who would have ever owned any Sega consoles but they were marketed here too. Gameboy was a thing of course, but mostly thanks to Pokemon. When it comes to later console generations, Finland has been Playstation dominated territory for the most part, but lot of people who have owned every other Playstation had an affair with Xbox with Xbox 360.
Mexican here. Yes, KOF is the most popular fighting series (SF and other Capcom series are not that far behind though) and that's because Arcades in general were how most low/middle class people played videogames back in the late 80s-early 90s period. Computers were stupidly expensive and while Nintendo had some presence thanks to Club Nintendo magazine, I'm sure most mexican millennials have fond memories of playing things like Snow Bros, Super Sidekicks, Mortal Kombat, Metal Slug, Time Crisis and stuff like that in a tortilleria or grocery store. Sega was almost non existant during the 8-16 bit wars, except in some northern states (I found that when my family moved to Sonora for a while in '96) where more kids had Genesis instead of SNES because of the US proximity. PS1 gained popularity until 98-99 thanks to modded consoles.
Also, contrary to most of the world, Xbox has been the dominant console since the 360 generation. They have huge marketing and presence here.
Also, contrary to most of the world, Xbox has been the dominant console since the 360 generation. They have huge marketing and presence here.
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Yeah, I always think about this when people talk about how the 1983 industry crash almost killed the entire videogame industry, when all it did was knock out one third of one market for three years.
If you break down the videogame industry into its three central markets (North America, Europe and Japan) and then divide those markets into three parts (arcade, PC and console games), then the "Great Videogame Crash" only temporarily knocked out 1/9th of the industry (the North American console market).
If you break down the videogame industry into its three central markets (North America, Europe and Japan) and then divide those markets into three parts (arcade, PC and console games), then the "Great Videogame Crash" only temporarily knocked out 1/9th of the industry (the North American console market).
Yeah, after C64 the Amiga was big here in Germany. And from there PC gaming was the logical next step.
I'm from Canada and I was literally a child at the time (like 8-12 years old), but what was interesting to me is N64 felt more popular than PlayStation here. It was THE console to have... until around 2000 when PS1 piracy was super well known and widespread. Games like GoldenEye and the Aki wrestling games were completely massive. I remember talking about "Zelda" (Ocarina of Time) like this ubiquitous thing that everyone just knew.
Canada often gets lumped in with the US in discussions like this, and usually that's a fair assessment since we have a lot in common culturally (especially in terms of media consumption habits) and we get games day-and-date and with the US. For the most part you can basically swap Madden for NHL and our sales charts are almost the same list.
But I have heard the N64 was especially popular in Canada. I remember reading GamePro or EGM or whatever and they'd talk about how popular the PlayStation is and how the N64 is slumping and it just did not align with what I saw in the world. I will say that PS1 definitely owned the "just play sports and racing games" crowd, though. It was almost a novelty when someone owned a PS1 and was playing like... action/adventure games or platformers on it.
PS2 was fucking massive here though. Almost nobody I knew had GameCubes or Xboxes.
Canada often gets lumped in with the US in discussions like this, and usually that's a fair assessment since we have a lot in common culturally (especially in terms of media consumption habits) and we get games day-and-date and with the US. For the most part you can basically swap Madden for NHL and our sales charts are almost the same list.
But I have heard the N64 was especially popular in Canada. I remember reading GamePro or EGM or whatever and they'd talk about how popular the PlayStation is and how the N64 is slumping and it just did not align with what I saw in the world. I will say that PS1 definitely owned the "just play sports and racing games" crowd, though. It was almost a novelty when someone owned a PS1 and was playing like... action/adventure games or platformers on it.
PS2 was fucking massive here though. Almost nobody I knew had GameCubes or Xboxes.
I feel like this is important to bring up to as so many ppl March toward an all digital future and how that isn't as accessible in some parts of the world. Then again if they don't sell a lot of devices there it's not like the console makers would care about losing those consumers anyway
The NES I bought when I was a kid here in Canada had a big Mattel logo on the box, but not on the console itself. By the time the SNES came out Nintendo had setup a proper Canadian division.
Yup, that was mainly my experience as well growing up in the late 80s/early 90s. The 80s for me was all about computers. Spectrum first with its cassettes and rubber keyboard, then the Amiga 500 with its impressive looking games like Batman, Turrican II (I prefer the Amiga version) and other releases that have a gigantic leap over Spectrum/Amstrad/C64 games. It wasnt until the late 80s/early 90s that I really remember paying attention to console gaming (I wanted an NES for Mario 3 and Mega Man 2) but over here, the Master System actually did better (well, apparently, I dont remember that bit). I do remember the Snes/MD stuff more clearly, but even then I held onto the Amiga for a while in the 90s as arcade ports like Rainbow Islands were amazing, but eventually the arcade ports for stuff like Mortal Kombat or SFII started getting real bad, and I ended up with them on the Snes.
Pelit Magazine, it's Finnish publication. And small clarification, the vote was for games from the time the magazine has been active. So no games from the 80's were eligible.
As a fellow Canadian, I can co-sign on everything here. I knew maybe 2 or 3 kids growing up with PS1s whereas everyone had N64. I always felt super disconnected when I'd read/watch articles in gaming media that painted the ps1 as this behemoth that completely shifted Nintendo into irrelevance because this was not my lived experience at all. The PS2 was massive though, as you said.
Similarly, I'd agree with Zelda being uniquely popular here (especially in my cohort of millennials in their late 20s to mid 30s). I'd say on a nearly daily basis I see someone with a triforce hat/shirt or a Zelda tattoo. In fact, I think I remember an interview with Reggie around the 30th anniversary where he noted how popular the series was in Canada.
Here in Czechia, Nintendo's presence was completely minuscule pretty much up until the GameBoy, which was many people's first handheld and where their love for Mario, Zelda or Metroid started. It never materialized for me, really, so it's admittedly a bit harder for me to understand how 40-something people in the US can get excited for each major Nintendo release. Most people here have the greatest affinity for PC (biggest history) and Playstation (first major console in the 90s).
I'm glad some people mentioned the Commodore 64 doing well in North America. It often gets forgotten that gamers here had plenty of games to play in the mid '80s. We didn't stop playing because Atari was no longer popular.
It's nice this thread exists for people around the world to show everyone different viewpoints. The variations are fascinating. It's also millennial-centrism that dominates message boards like this one.
It's nice this thread exists for people around the world to show everyone different viewpoints. The variations are fascinating. It's also millennial-centrism that dominates message boards like this one.
Among your age group, I can see that. For me in my twenties back then, the Playstation felt more popular. From what I remember from another thread, we're both in the Lower Mainland.
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Apart from being known as Sega land, Brazillian competitive Pokemon scene actually precedes both the official VGC and Smogon. Our first nation wide championship took place in 2001, called "Elite 4 Challenge" and organized by Pokemon Club Evolution, an officially licensed magazine.
They even did anime-style artwork for their members. It's insane to read a publication from before freaking Netbattle discussing the benefits of Spikes + Toxic on stall teams.
They even did anime-style artwork for their members. It's insane to read a publication from before freaking Netbattle discussing the benefits of Spikes + Toxic on stall teams.
The N64 is kinda interesting because the drop from the SNES was massive in Europe and Japan, so many people don't have much nostalgia for it unlike in the USA where it was outsold by the PlayStation but the drop relative to the SNES wasn't that massive.
As has been said already, Canada is pretty similar to the US but with a few differences. I'm pretty sure, both anecdotally and through sales data, that Nintendo consoles have been historically more relatively popular here compared to the States. I feel like they were more popular than Sega, certainly. The Mega Drive/Genesis sold pretty well but the Master System and Saturn were very hard to find. I was convinced for the longest time that the Saturn had never released in Canada but from doing research it seems like a "Sega of Canada" did exist and the Saturn was released here, just in incredibly low numbers. There were tons of Dreamcasts comparatively, but it was a huge bomb and quickly put on clearance.
I'm from the UK and was born in the late 90s, and I really wish there was the breadth of content on history here that there is for the US and Japan. I started gaming on a PlayStation and Game Boy, and continued from there, getting every Nintendo and Sony console and handheld (Nintendo consoles starting at the GameCube). We also had some NES all in one system thing. My PC gaming was basically limited to edutainment stuff as a kid until I built my first PC when I was 14. I feel like I missed out on when the European (and also UK specific) gaming culture was different to the rest of the world. As far as I've been able to find there isn't really a Console Wars style book approaching stuff from this angle is there? I'd be interested if there is.
iOS gaming on my iPod Touch was also quite a major thing that got me interested in the industry as a whole when I was about 10. Before that point I basically followed gaming news with the occasional magazines we'd get when going on holiday somewhere. But I had to find gaming focused websites to get any real timely updates on what to play there. I don't know how typical this is for other people around my age though.
iOS gaming on my iPod Touch was also quite a major thing that got me interested in the industry as a whole when I was about 10. Before that point I basically followed gaming news with the occasional magazines we'd get when going on holiday somewhere. But I had to find gaming focused websites to get any real timely updates on what to play there. I don't know how typical this is for other people around my age though.
The SMS was unpopular in Canada just like the US but I never had trouble finding games for it. Superstore/Loblaws, Sears, Toy City and others had it. Compucentre even had those really limited later releases like Battle OutRun, Ultima IV, Golden Axe Warrior, Sonic 1, etc.
I'm surprised you thought the Saturn never released here. It was in Electronics Boutique for a few years which was a well established store in Canada by that point. Microplay had plenty of Saturn games. I even bought Saturn games at London Drugs.
I doubt the Sega market share differences were that big between Canada and the US. In both, it was the Genesis that was successful.