I've heard many times before that the Master System was a bigger seller than the NES in the UK and that it was more mythical there. If there's anybody from the UK who can remember, how much presence did the NES actually have there?
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Was the NES actually obscure in the UK?
- Thread starter HomokHarcos
- Start date
As a kid who grew up in the 80's and was playing games from the spectrum onwards,i had no idea who Nintendo was and never heard of them until I was playing on a Gameboy ( wanted a game gear cos colour, but hey ho).
For me and many of my friends at the time we went from computers to megadrive. Nintendo was largely unknown in my circle until pokemon.
I mean megadrive looked cool.
For me and many of my friends at the time we went from computers to megadrive. Nintendo was largely unknown in my circle until pokemon.
I mean megadrive looked cool.
yeah this is true, my dad had an NES and then that got passed down to my sister and then eventually me. Apparently there were 2 versions of the NES in the UK aswell, the Matell version Nintendo Entertainment System which was available exclusively in Boots (A chemist shop) which really limited its reach. apparently this angered nintendo so they revoked the licence from Matell and then re-released it in the country themselves as the NES Version Nintendo Entertainment System.
Games were about 10x more expensive than what most people were willing to pay for games too, you could get a ZX spectrum game for like £2 or an NES game for ~£30? Maybe more than that actually I was far too young around then to actually remember.
I've never seen a Mattel branded NES or NES game in my life although i remember being told that Matell games wouldnt work on Nintendo branded machines, no idea how accurate that is.
Most people I know who played games growing up owned either a ZX Spectrum if they were growing up in the 80's or either a Master System or a Mega Drive. As a die hard Nintendo kid it made it really hard to find other people with a Nintendo Console. Every kid I knew though had a Game Boy, go figure.
Games were about 10x more expensive than what most people were willing to pay for games too, you could get a ZX spectrum game for like £2 or an NES game for ~£30? Maybe more than that actually I was far too young around then to actually remember.
I've never seen a Mattel branded NES or NES game in my life although i remember being told that Matell games wouldnt work on Nintendo branded machines, no idea how accurate that is.
Most people I know who played games growing up owned either a ZX Spectrum if they were growing up in the 80's or either a Master System or a Mega Drive. As a die hard Nintendo kid it made it really hard to find other people with a Nintendo Console. Every kid I knew though had a Game Boy, go figure.
Yes.
Atari 2600 had a decent foothold with a good few BBC home computers used for gaming too. Was used in schools so easy to convince parents to buy it.
Market then moved to C64, Spectrum and Amstrad before 16bit Amiga 500 and Atari ST took over. Around this time the Megadrive started to make waves with a clear market lead over the SNES.
NES and Master System where niche machines. Didn't help with carts being so expensive when pirating was rampant on home computers.
Atari 2600 had a decent foothold with a good few BBC home computers used for gaming too. Was used in schools so easy to convince parents to buy it.
Market then moved to C64, Spectrum and Amstrad before 16bit Amiga 500 and Atari ST took over. Around this time the Megadrive started to make waves with a clear market lead over the SNES.
NES and Master System where niche machines. Didn't help with carts being so expensive when pirating was rampant on home computers.
I didn't know Nintendo home consoles existed until fairly late into the Nintendo 64's lifecycle. By that time Mario Tennis had already been released. I was even aware of the SEGA 32X, so I wasn't totally in the dark when it came to gaming stuff.
Everyone I knew had Gameboys and SEGA systems up until that point.
Everyone I knew had Gameboys and SEGA systems up until that point.
It was a rich kids thing.
Games for the 8&16-bit home PCs like the Sinclair & Commodore models started at £2 and topped out at £20, while NES carts started at £30-40.
Games for the 8&16-bit home PCs like the Sinclair & Commodore models started at £2 and topped out at £20, while NES carts started at £30-40.
My buddies here had ZERO interest in a NES Mini, even though we were the same age (I grew up in Canada).
They are waiting for the PS Classic though.
They are waiting for the PS Classic though.
This is possibly a regional thing, I'm pretty surprised that anyone would have thought it obscure at the time. Among everyone I knew it was commonly owned, and for people that didn't own one they were definitely aware of it. Master System seemed a bit more obscure, although snes/megadrive was a more even split.
I grew up more familiar with the ZX Spectrum and Master System. I didn't know much about the NES — it really wasn't until the internet that I became far more familiar with that system.
As for the Super Nintendo, it did seem to have a lot more presence, but the Mega Drive was far more popular and seemingly always had far better shelf space for its games. I still have a lot of games with that BlockBuster foil stuck on it.
As for the Super Nintendo, it did seem to have a lot more presence, but the Mega Drive was far more popular and seemingly always had far better shelf space for its games. I still have a lot of games with that BlockBuster foil stuck on it.
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No, it was not uncommon. hell, argos consistently gave it more space in their catalogue then the master system. It didn't sell as well though, afaik. Amiga was very popular at the time too.
Nintendo games were more expensive then Sega games (this continued on into the next gen), and Virgin promoted the Master System better.
Nintendo games were more expensive then Sega games (this continued on into the next gen), and Virgin promoted the Master System better.
I'm from the UK. The NES was my first console -- it was a Christmas present I asked for because my friends had one. By the time Super Mario Bros 3 came out, there was a pretty well established ecosystem of shops, magazines and so on.
It was never mythically unavailable as far as I'm aware, and certainly a lot of Devs for the system seemed to be UK-based. Codemasters, for instance, pioneered the Game Genie, which was a device that you plugged the cart into before plugged the whole assembly into your NES, which allowed you to input cheats by essentially live-patching the game.
It was never mythically unavailable as far as I'm aware, and certainly a lot of Devs for the system seemed to be UK-based. Codemasters, for instance, pioneered the Game Genie, which was a device that you plugged the cart into before plugged the whole assembly into your NES, which allowed you to input cheats by essentially live-patching the game.
The UK was definitely Sega land at the time. The Mega Drive in particular seemed like the go-to console among everyone I knew.
It was true for the UK but not for other parts of Europe, Nes/Snes was huge in Sweden when I grew up.
You have to remember that the video game crash that happened in the USA didn't really affect us in the UK. In 83 we had the ZX Spectrum released and our own mini home computer boom...the BBC Micro and the Commodore machines were all very popular alongside the older ZX81 and Dragon and Tandy/RadioShack computers.
When the N.E.S was released, the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 were still very popular gaming machines and we had the Atari ST and Amiga release just on the horizon.
If it had arrived closer to the USA release date it may have done better but Sega's marketing pretty much destroyed that of Nintendo's anyway.
When the N.E.S was released, the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 were still very popular gaming machines and we had the Atari ST and Amiga release just on the horizon.
If it had arrived closer to the USA release date it may have done better but Sega's marketing pretty much destroyed that of Nintendo's anyway.
God, now you're asking me - probably? It feels like a lifetime ago.
I'm sure you're right though. Aren't we one of the few countries where the Mega Drive outsold the SNES?
I didn't really know much about consoles until the Mega Drive (Genesis).
The only gaming machines I was aware of as a kid were Commodores, Ataris, Spectrums and Amstrads.
All my mates had Atari STs or Commodore Amigas. It wasn't until 16 bit consoles that consoles became a thing.
The only gaming machines I was aware of as a kid were Commodores, Ataris, Spectrums and Amstrads.
All my mates had Atari STs or Commodore Amigas. It wasn't until 16 bit consoles that consoles became a thing.
Nintendo really took off when they sold the NES with the TMHT. They had to change the Ninja to Hero. Before that it was mostly SEGA Master system which was managed by Virgin. Even then some of the best NES games still never made it to the UK unless you could import or had some kind of regional cartridge adaptor. UK was also mostly home computer land at that time period too.
I don't know how much of a difference that made. People bought way fewer games back then.
It was the games that made the difference. Sonic and Alex Kidd.
I must admit that my memory of that time told me that both Sega and Nintendo were dwarfed by PC. Is that right?
That may explain why I never saw them. I still have a copy of Sonic 3 that has a £59.99 sticker on it and that was probably one of the most expensive things I was given as a child. If that was £10 cheaper than the competition then nobody I knew would've been able to afford those.
I'm not sure I'd call it obscure, but I didn't know many people with one. Certainly don't feel like it was as popular and influential here as it seems to have been over the pond in the US.
Out of all the kids in my school (few hundred) and friends I knew outside of school, one kid had a NES,rest was sega or amiga
Obscure, no, but it wasn't particularly huge. It's worth remembering that as there was no video game crash on this side of the pond, and the home computers (Spectrum, C64, Amiga, Atari ST, etc) were huge here, the NES wasn't the compelling saviour of the video game industry that it was in the US.
On the console front, Sega was number one here until the Playstation hit.
On the console front, Sega was number one here until the Playstation hit.
I just dont even think nintendo consoles where that huge in the uk
Then sony came in and dominated europe
Then sony came in and dominated europe
The only press I remember from the NES' release here always seemed to focus on R.O.B, we even had "Tomorrow's World", a popular BBC technology show featuring it.
It was cool and exciting until your parents clocked the price of it and the console when Christmas shopping in their local Woolworths.
It was cool and exciting until your parents clocked the price of it and the console when Christmas shopping in their local Woolworths.
Huh. I had no idea. Very few kids had a console when I was growing up, but those who did almost always had the NES. I didn't know anyone with a Master System. But as others have said, when the next generation hardware came out, Super Nintendo and Megadrive seemed about equal.
Yeah, the release of the original PlayStation was a game-changer. Everyone had a PlayStation. I was fortunate enough to have that and an N64 (bought much later mind you). But Sony really shook things up, and PS2 cemented that.
Never understood that Spectrum love. But as a Amiga 500 fanatic before moving on to the SNES, I understand in some ways.
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Living in Edinburgh, the only place you buy a NES in the early days was John Menzies in Princes Street.
It was cheap and had tons of great games Along with the Amiga one of the 1st systems to sell over 3 million units in the UK.
£10 was a huge difference back then! If I was saving up for a new game, it would take months just to get to £10.
Kind of? Amiga was huge which is a kind of PC. DOS was nowhere near as big. I played DOS games then because my dad had an Amstrad IBM compatible for work and you could get shareware games for pennies, and the budget games were WAYYYYYYY cheaper then the console ones. But no-one else I knew had one, though plenty had amigas.
I was born in 1984 and had a NES in the late very late 80s. Obsure or not I had one.
I also had a PC with a 286 CPU running ms dos at a time when everyone had Amiga and spectrums etc.
I also had a PC with a 286 CPU running ms dos at a time when everyone had Amiga and spectrums etc.
I think the UK was more a computer nation.
Amstrad
Commodore
Sinclair
Those cassettes and floppies were a fraction of the price of cartridges to buy. It's why one of the reasons we have a good development community , there are companies that still exist from those days.
Amstrad
Commodore
Sinclair
Those cassettes and floppies were a fraction of the price of cartridges to buy. It's why one of the reasons we have a good development community , there are companies that still exist from those days.
In most Dixons stores, a general electronic store of the time, NES games took up a huge amount of space in the gaming section. Plus they all pretty much had an M82 demo unit set up, which was always in use.
Plus at school, most everyone I knew had a NES and we'd all buy Total! magazine.
But man, the ZX Spectrum lasted a looooong time too, well into the NES's lifetime, and many people just never felt the need to upgrade.
Plus at school, most everyone I knew had a NES and we'd all buy Total! magazine.
But man, the ZX Spectrum lasted a looooong time too, well into the NES's lifetime, and many people just never felt the need to upgrade.