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Time Extension article: Does Video Game History have a Nintendo Problem?
- Thread starter Demon Lizardman
- Start date
Virtual boy has literally nothing to do in its released form with any iteration of VR
We had VR in the 90s btw and it looked like this
It didn't play well (oh lord it really didn't)
it looked butt ugly but it was still VR.
Virtual Boy is closer to table top Switch than VR.
Statistically speaking Saturn was barely present compared to the overwhelming playstation that released at a lower price with a better product.
Like good for you if that's your case but making a claim that Saturn was this important when the direct competitor literally swamped the very same market to the point that it makes competition look like footnotes is extremely funny.
I absolutely agree with the idea that Nintendo receives disproportionate focus when talking about the history of the medium. PC, arcade, and home computer games tend to be glossed over.
However, this article is literally just rambling about some scattered tweets.
However, this article is literally just rambling about some scattered tweets.
I play retro games often on a variety of platforms, and at least in terms of what's still fun to play in 2024... Nintendo clears a lot of other devs at the time (80s and early 90s) quite easily. Not universally, but a huge portion of the games that are still just "good" and not "you had to be there, this used to be good" are Nintendo games. Konami, Capcom, Sega, Squaresoft, Hudson, SNK, Taito and some others were quite good too. But they definitely have some "eeehhh" stuff, while Nintendo's output is very heavily in the "this is still really fun to play" category.
Like, Yoshi's Island and Super Metroid are still better than most indie games that might be compared to them. These are very late 2D-era Nintendo games, but still... plenty of the best/most loved games from other publishers feel dated now.
Like, Yoshi's Island and Super Metroid are still better than most indie games that might be compared to them. These are very late 2D-era Nintendo games, but still... plenty of the best/most loved games from other publishers feel dated now.
The issue though is some of these aren't impactful on a niche level. They're the basis of stuff like World Of Warcraft, or every space sim you'll ever play. But the combined influence of various Nintendo titles become larger than the sum of their relative parts, because they can all be attributed to a still currently prominent juggernaut. Many of the individual historic games that influence countless games from their time onwards, could be the exact same game but would be far more historically cited if they weren't developed by a software house that either no longer exists, or is otherwise less publicly known today. Origin, Westwood, Core, etc contributed games that are acknowledged far less than their influential merits warrant.
And yes, I think it's important to separate out the topic itself having merit, whilst acknowledging the article isn't really making a strong point of it.
I made a somewhat similar point recently about a book that's about Rock Band/Guitar Hero and how it didn't seem like it gave any credit to the Bemani games or even PaRappa. Without those, I feel like games such as Amplitude and the aforementioned music games wouldn't even exist, at least not the form that they took. If it does, that's great, but I didn't see it in the crowdfunding campaign. It comes across as Harmonix is responsible for the whole idea/genre, which just rubbed me the wrong way, which again, could be overblown/inaccurate. Maybe that's kinda like this, I don't know.
I think I get why that argument doesn't really fly to me.
Like sure let's take at face value that Nintendo is less impactful because of prior examples existing.
Why would you choose to pick World of Warcraft when you have other earlier games that do most of what that game do but worse.
Like if Mario 64 isn't important because Battle Command on Atari exists,
it stand to reason to not pick something like WoW when you have the Ultima Onlines of the world that predate WoW by decades in some case.
Why is Croc even important when we have earlier games that were more popular even?
Don't mind me, I'm adding this context for the Super A'Can
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycy861t9m_A
Seriously Taiwan's gaming history is absolutely fascinating.
I would also for anyone to explain why a shitload of hardware use the same connector as the Megadrive for controllers,
it's great because when it's compatible you can get a decent controller (Sega's) instead of whatever the fuck they were going for
but it's weird though.
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I thought this was going to be about preservation.
I'd say no, but it will just always seems that way because of the outsized success of their games combined with how long they've been doing it. No different than other mediums having big directors or artists who get all the glory when there are others who did the same and maybe even better at the same time, but didn't blow up.
Folks like Richard Spector or Fumito Ueda are just as important but you won't find most people who play games, even console/PC games knowing who they are.
I'd say no, but it will just always seems that way because of the outsized success of their games combined with how long they've been doing it. No different than other mediums having big directors or artists who get all the glory when there are others who did the same and maybe even better at the same time, but didn't blow up.
Folks like Richard Spector or Fumito Ueda are just as important but you won't find most people who play games, even console/PC games knowing who they are.
I would be very interested to see this argument substantiated.
They're not wrong though. Even remotely attributing games like Virtua Fighter to the Saturn's relative popularity is exactly the sort of thing that causes the influence of the titles to be underrepresented. How many people played the Saturn version means nothing. The game could have existed as only an arcade title at all and it's influence would be tremendous. In one single game the entire foundations that still apply to every traditional fighting game was formulated. And that game was a phenomenon regardless of Sega console space woes. The over-attribution of the console market in gaming history because it is the current surviving standard is arguably the root cause of many of the most (still) influential games of all time not being given their proper due.
I've spoken at length regarding Virtua Fighter's individual influence in the past, and so will just copy in from a previous post rather than type out again from scratch.
Bringing Saturn's popularity into the discussion when talking about Virtua Fighter's influence implies a fundamental misunderstanding about game being "influential" as opposed to just "popular".
Virtual boy has literally nothing to do in its released form with any iteration of VR
We had VR in the 90s btw and it looked like this
It didn't play well (oh lord it really didn't)
it looked butt ugly but it was still VR.
Virtual Boy is closer to table top Switch than VR.
Virtual Boy represents one of the first attempts at consumer level VR at home. That it was fucking awful at it, and a complete failure does not eliminate it from the VR history timeline. It just lessens it's impact and placement within it.
But this is basically my point. Virtual Boy does not resemble today's modern VR because it was far too primitive an implementation to. Comparatively Sega Channel and SegaNet are far more representative of what both gaming subscription services and online gaming services of the current day would be. They were relatively close to the final solution.
You may want to reread. I said the "basis" of games like World Of Warcraft. I used a modern game to demonstrate how the influence on gaming today is not "niche" or small. Roguelikes are hardly a niche or small segment of modern gaming, but the historical representation for Rogue absolutely is. Were it not for the name of the game being part of the subgenre label there's a very real chance that I myself would not know what Rogue is, because for all the gaming media I consume, and all the gaming discussion communities I've been a part of over the years, essentially nobody would have ever passed this historical knowledge down onto me without me actively going to search for it. Conversely I never have to search for any of Nintendo's historical impacts, because they're all repeatedly reinforced within any discussion remotely connected to gaming history. This is the point I'm trying to make, and I hope I've made it more understandable in this post and less likely to be misinterpreted.
This isn't simply about what came first. It's about how much influence some games have carried, and how infrequently they are credited for that influence relative to similar influences in Nintendo titles.
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Just two video game historians I'd like to recommend for wider coverage than some are used to:
www.youtube.com
Strafefox/Splash Wave, does excellent videos on just a variety of topics, I'd highly recommend their Streets of Rage video, and the Out Run and Space Harrier video.
Ahoy (formerly XboxAhoy) - does a variety of videos, focused on PC games and shooters, but also many other topics. Highly recommend their Chicken-o-meter and Monkey Island videos.
But for both of these, so many of their videos are good.
strafefox
My Youtube show called Splash Wave is focused on documenting game development during the 8bit & 16bit era of video games from a creative and technical point of view. Covering the tools, challenges and the creative solutions the developers came up with. Designing the 80s is mini series exploring...
www.youtube.com
But for both of these, so many of their videos are good.
But that's exactly what I'm saying: there is relatively less cultural memory of many of these games *because* they are not as widely played today. *Because* there is a relatively smaller effort to keep them relevant. They are considered a smaller part of history because their history has not been kept alive, and that's happening partly because there is not a publisher pushing them out on all modern platforms or a fanbase that's still super active today. But those are also signs of a smaller impact, not necessarily a small influence on other games but definitely a smaller one on the people playing those games.
It's a little more complex than just a straight 'yes or no', but there is something to the idea over time things gets shorted from "SM64 was a big step in 3D game design" to "SM64 was the first 3D game (basically)". That's not to say Nintendo's landmarks/influence is overstated, but there is a lot of video game history that isn't covered nearly as much because of the American-centric coverage of a lot of game sites.
Of course some of it is simply due to how Nintendo nurtures their properties compared to most other companies too.
Of course some of it is simply due to how Nintendo nurtures their properties compared to most other companies too.
I don't think it's possible to overstate Virtua Fighter's influence on the landscape.
I would however make the claim that the Saturn could have been entirely scrapped and not much would have changed in that regard.
Also it's weird that Virtua Fighter is part of a discussion about Nintendo's influence on the industry when Virtua Fighter and Nintendo's output at the time couldn't be farther if you tried.
Like Nintendo never even tried making a 3D fighter till rather recently to begin with,
while fighters were unfathomably huge at the time.
And I mean like you have movies about video games and the only thing they show is basically a Tekken clone.
this tells that 3D fighters were so mainstream that you could convince a rando producer to finance a movie length project about it no question asked.
In short VF was hugely influential, Saturn was not.
Same with Virtua Racing and all the other racing endeavor Sega made.
I mean if you are going to talk about Virtua Fighter's influence, the Saturn's part of it is a footnote more than anything.
Arcades were big back then to the point that arcade accurate port of games was a legit selling point for people to invest in a whole platform for it.
No one buying VF on Saturn would have done so without the huge impact of the arcade og.
And make no mistake while VF was influential it was also extremely popular because I don't want to even hint at the fact that these games were influential but not popular.
To be fair Virtual Boy was godawful at most things, it didn't even release in Europe(and believe me with how long they delayed n64, they really had a window to market it).
I entirely disagree because VR already existed back then and wasn't anything like that.
It was more of an arcade experience but it was there.
VB is basically gluing a game boy screen on your head to play some game in 3D, it's really closer to 3DS than anything else.
VR history loses nothing by disregarding VB (especially when you have alternatives that were really way closer to what we think of VR).
I see what you mean but then why forget Ultima at all.
It's a whole branch of role playing that is largely ignored that is deeply influential (and it was also really popular, with rare exceptions we don't remember unpopular games at all).
Heck in that regard Nintendo basically made a few Dragon quest clones, Zelda and that's about it for their role playing endeavors.
I feel like a big part of it is that Nintendo is still extremely prevalent as a developer today, arguably more prevalent than they were when they were releasing all their most influential games, and have never really stopped shining a light on those older games, both on the actual games themselves in directs or in their other games like Odyssey having a 64 costume. Case in point, do you even know who developed Rogue? I didn't until I just googled it, it was Epyx who went out of business in 1993. I think we see this in other areas as well, like I'd say Sega and Square Enix still get more recognition than even someone like Konami does these days as they are far more prevalent in the industry, I'd also say there is a pretty direct correlation between the decrease in shout outs Konami gets for the influence their classic titles had in the industry and them kind of self destructing a a little over a decade ago.
That is to say, I get where the article is coming from but I disagree with it's assumption that people know them because of "Nintendo youtubers" or whatever, I think it's just because Nintendo still exists, is bigger than ever, and makes a ton of effort shining a spotlight on its back catalog.
If Youtubers are what passes for "historians" then yeah, Nintendo is wildly overrepresented. They have managed to nuture more old IPs into long-lasting relevance than anyone else, so their old games from still-relevant IPs are going to get more hits than anything else. Like everything else turned over to the capitalist hellscape, people are going to see more of what they want to see than the full picture.
I wonder if this sentiment is more common now that there are so many gamers who weren't around for the NES/Famicom or SNES era?
The early years of console gaming were industry defining and if you weren't around for it, maybe you underestimate the importance of that time period and the big players at that time.
The early years of console gaming were industry defining and if you weren't around for it, maybe you underestimate the importance of that time period and the big players at that time.
People from the NES/famicon/SNES but also from US or Japan.
Again European distribution of Nintendo product was....not great to begin with.
Consoles really blew up with the OG Playstation to an extent that I don't think someone from the US can understand.
And of course there's also plenty of region specific things that is entirely lost in the loop.
From like everything to do with gaming computer in the UK to specific now defunct local companies.
Like if you listen to people online, they'll tell you Titus is just Superman 64 when it's really just their ends and they have quite a fascinating history too.
Also sometimes you have like 1 or 2 people who have strong opinion that will color the thing for all of us, like for example Zelda II or Infogrammes.
I understand what you're saying but quite heavily disagree. History isn't defined by current popularity. History can be forgotten due to neglect, but that isn't a measure of it's actual impact.
Virtua Fighter isn't less impactful today because people don't shout about it with the same frequency of the average Nintendo classic. It's impossible today to create a 3D fighter without VF's impact directly influencing it, and it is not unknown by anyone who ever creates such a title. However, mainstream popularity obviously belongs to Tekken today... but Tekken's relative historical impact is microscopic in comparison to VF, and it literally always will be. But the way WE talk about games historically misattributed historical impact and importance, and replaces it with mere popularity.
We have some very true gaps in gaming history simply because we lacked the required preservation to preserve the knowledge of their existence correctly. This is especially true for genre that were born more from computers as opposed to arcades and consoles. There are games that established the very foundations of genres that are entirely lost to time, but yet their existence is why we have the genres we do today. To argue that their historical impact is now zero, because their public knowledge is now zero would strike me as being incredibly disrespectful of some of gaming history most important creations.
If for some reason we all had collective and selective amnesia tomorrow, and all forgot Virtua Fighter existed. If we still had all the 3D fighters derived from its legacy, it's importance and impact wouldn't become zero. However, the argument you're essentially putting forth is that it would, because historical impact would only be equal to how many people would still talk about it.
Yes and no. While the importance of what came before Nintendo can't be understated, the importance of Nintendo also can't be understated.
It is, very much so, and i think its because of their IP which is such a small part of the picture but iconic images hold people's attention. I think Sega is overshadowed big time due to most of their stuff being mid-to-gigantic failures, and classic PC gaming is generally overlooked due to how niche it was and how byzantine it can be to access some of it today.
Give us a couple more decades to widen the window of gaming history and we will rightfully start to see stuff like Sony's and Microsoft's contributions get their due respect
Virtual Boy was an awful 3DS that you stuck your face in, not early consumer VR
Give us a couple more decades to widen the window of gaming history and we will rightfully start to see stuff like Sony's and Microsoft's contributions get their due respect
Virtual Boy was an awful 3DS that you stuck your face in, not early consumer VR
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sega definitely gets downplayed at the expense of Nintendo because Nintendo "won". I think they were equally important from the late 80s until the death of the Dreamcast.
This article isn't arguing that Virtua Fighter had a huge influence over 3D fighters, though. It's instead making the argument that it's fair to think the influence of Mario 64 on 3D games *in general* overstated because other 3D games (including Virtua Fighter) came earlier (and existed as its contemporaries), and those games usually aren't discussed.
I think that's silly for reasons I already stated. Virtua Fighter may be extremely impactful but Mario 64's impact is felt and acknowledged by more people, which makes it a better reference point for questions as broad as the ones examined in the article. And so I'm questioning the project of the article. I'm not questioning the idea that large parts of gaming history (including many actual influences on the trajectory of game development) aren't acknowledged enough.
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I'm not sure I understand even referencing Virtua Fighter in the context of SM64 as an influential 3D game. SM64 isn't influential because uh… it uses polygons and gameplay technically exists within a 3D space. SM64's influences are in character control systems in a 3D space, as well dynamic 3rd person camera models. Things VF… doesn't really have. There's a reason SM64 and OoT come up in developer interviews regarding something like GTA3, but not Virtua Fighter 3, and it's not a Nintendo bias.
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Nintendo is seen more influential then first of ever in terms of their output.
Super Metroid, Earthbound, Super Mario 64, Zelda OoT, Donkey kong.
They ain't the first games ever in their genre, but the games that were influenced by them are far ranging.
Super Metroid, Earthbound, Super Mario 64, Zelda OoT, Donkey kong.
They ain't the first games ever in their genre, but the games that were influenced by them are far ranging.
Successful bit of clickbait from Damien.
Croc is an average game that only got the numbers it had because the PS1 had a large install base but a lack of 3D platformers around the time of its release.
It's a forgettable game that got lucky because of its release window.
Croc is an average game that only got the numbers it had because the PS1 had a large install base but a lack of 3D platformers around the time of its release.
It's a forgettable game that got lucky because of its release window.
I still think there's some parts of our discussion being lost in translation here, but to some extent I think our points (and those of who you initially quoted) are starting to converge somewhat and we're beginning to make closer to the same argument.
I think we both fully agree that Virtua Fighter was a huge deal, extremely influential on the genre both back then and still today... and more specifically that the Saturn is basically irrelevant when talking about VF's historical importance. This is kinda the initial point we were trying to make though. The historical credit Virtua Fighter is given nowadays is impacted because people talk about all games as if they are inherently just console games. Games that established their legacy in other areas of the gaming market are comparatively under addressed when talking about gaming's history.
My point isn't that Nintendo made any direct comparison to VF. It's actually the exact opposite. That there are many many hugely influential games in genres Nintendo largely had no major presence in. But despite them being just as groundbreaking and impactful in their respective genres, they receive far less historical acknowledgment for their achievements. That is imo that definition of others being under-represented relative to Nintendo.
Something "existing" before doesn't mean much. Virtual Boy is a VR footnote, because it solved nothing, and achieved essentially nothing. But other VR existing wouldn't negate it's impact were it to have actually managed to be impactful. VR existed long before the Oculus Rift, and I'm sure none of us here are about to question it's historic impact for VR.
I think it's important to remember, that I'm only arguing that Virtual Boy is part of consumer VR's history. I'm not arguing that it was hugely impactful, or that it contributed much at all. I agree VR loses effectively nothing if Virtual Boy didn't exist. But it did exist regardless. It just primarily only showed how far away we were from the technology being viable at home. I was actually arguing how comparatively something like SegaNet WAS impactful. Not to the extent of Xbox Live... but it very much deserves acknowledgment for it's place in online gaming history.
I specifically called it out by name alongside others like Rogue, Elite and Wizardry. I was just afterwards trying to show that the influences from the likes of Ultima and others were not limited to "niche" or small titles, and that's not the cause of them not being talked about as much.
This is exactly what I'm also getting at, but I feel you've both worded it in a way that's more easily understood.
This is very much a case of history being written by the victors. If Sega were the biggest console platform owner today (let's say they replace PlayStation), they would be able to more easily reinforce the knowledge of their historically important titles, and as a result those games would remain more popular in the modern landscape.
The historical impacts of certain companies are being retroactively diminished, because they have less ability to reinforce their image on the current market. Nintendo still being around and innovative should rightfully mean they're credited with a longer lineage of historically important titles. But it shouldn't be diminishing the importance of all their competitors so that two games released in the same year that were 50:50 in terms of impact on a genre are instead portrayed more like 85:15.
I would actually argue that the more recently born you are, and the first away from the era of the NES and SNES, the more likely it is that you only know of those consoles from that era, and attribute the early innovations in various genres more to games that exist specifically on them.
You can be born in 2015 and still likely be directly exposed to key NES titles as a result of Nintendo Online, or NES Classic, and yes just a host of YouTubers coverage etc. There's a very good chance however that you don't know what either a Genesis or Master System is, and have zero knowledge of any defining games that exist on either. And the odds of you knowing what anything Atari put out looks like are extremely remote.
Those that were actually born then, are far more likely to retain the knowledge of the games that shaped that era and those to come. As we get older and die out, the knowledge of the era further dwindles, and progressively become overwritten more and more by the fact the Nintendo will still surface knowledge of their classic NES and SNES era titles for generation after generation in the tens of millions.
And Switch VR was effectively a less awful 3DS that you held to your face with a gyro. It being BAD doesn't change it's category.
The project name for the thing was literally VR-32.
It was the first (awful) attempt at consumer level VR at home.
The device's name isn't an accident.
Gex arguably has more mindshare today than he did in his day.
Dude is like a gateway to overly dated 90's pop culture, which has SOME retro value.
I actually quite liked Croc and played it a lot, but there's no way it was as influential as Banjo Kazooie.
The N64 is far from my favorite Nintendo console, but it was their first 3D console (Starfox notwithstanding), and they set a LOT of new standards in terms of controls and how you interact with 3D environments.
The N64 is far from my favorite Nintendo console, but it was their first 3D console (Starfox notwithstanding), and they set a LOT of new standards in terms of controls and how you interact with 3D environments.
Video game history shouldn't be primarily concerned with who made the best/most popular games.
I also want to say that I think the other reason why maybe sega doesn't get as much credit as they deserve is that such a huge part of their legacy is in arcade games and arcade games just aren't relevant anymore so it's hard to see the "influence" so to speak. You can download outrun on your switch or whatever but that's still not the way it was intended to be played and you are just not getting all of the context. Nintendo obviously has an arcade history too but it's much smaller and they turned most of their prominent arcade franchises into console franchises so they are more prominent in the post arcade era.
It was an attempt, sure. Saying the Virtual Boy was the first consumer level VR is like saying tap water is the first soda pop, you are missing every defining feature of what makes VR what it is except one thing, 3D. You can't look around, there was no motion tracking whatsoever, no sense of presence, you can't interact with anything, etc. At least Labo VR had head tracking like Cardboard, that alone puts it 100x closer than Virtual Boy.
Nintendo has been like a thread in my entire life, and I used to be somewhat of a fanboy during the 8 and 16-bit days. But even I couldn't escape from SEGA's greatness. My worldview changed when I got into PC gaming in the mid-'90s, and the PlayStation completely redefined what gaming could mean for me.
Read the article, and I agree with the now-deleted or hidden tweet about Super Mario 64 being overrated. I fully agree in fact. Was never impressed by Super Mario 64 back in the day. Heck, it wasn't even a "real" Super Mario game to me. Played far more enjoyable and (IMO) impressive games on PC and PlayStation, and in the arcade, where the real graphical arms race took place.
Nowadays I have a somewhat milder view on Super Mario 64 because there are aspects I like, but regardless, it will never surpass the earlier games like Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, or later ones, like Super Mario Galaxy or Super Mario 3D World. Super Mario Odyssey was the first "sandbox format" Super Mario game I liked.
Read the article, and I agree with the now-deleted or hidden tweet about Super Mario 64 being overrated. I fully agree in fact. Was never impressed by Super Mario 64 back in the day. Heck, it wasn't even a "real" Super Mario game to me. Played far more enjoyable and (IMO) impressive games on PC and PlayStation, and in the arcade, where the real graphical arms race took place.
Nowadays I have a somewhat milder view on Super Mario 64 because there are aspects I like, but regardless, it will never surpass the earlier games like Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, or later ones, like Super Mario Galaxy or Super Mario 3D World. Super Mario Odyssey was the first "sandbox format" Super Mario game I liked.
Historical importance and relevance is not just about when a thing first happened, but more often about when a thing happened successfully at scale to have cultural and social impact. On an academic level, sometimes too much importance is played on trying to discover what was absolutely the first occurrence of a thing when it may have very little actual relevance or importance in the larger scheme of history.
This reminds me a lot of the Gears of War and Kill/Switch debate. When looking at actual significant influence, it is clear that Gears of War is the factor that influenced modern third person cover shooters. Both in visuals and in implementation, when the games that came after it copied and adapted it, it is because everyone played Gears of War and saw how well that worked there.
Did Kill/Switch do it first? Sure. Was it implemented well enough and was the game itself popular enough to have any sort of significant cultural impact? No. Is it interesting to note that mechanics or styles that later got popularised by a much more successful game were first attempted by lesser known or niche games? Sure. Does that change of the historical significance of what actually popularised the thing? Nope.
This reminds me a lot of the Gears of War and Kill/Switch debate. When looking at actual significant influence, it is clear that Gears of War is the factor that influenced modern third person cover shooters. Both in visuals and in implementation, when the games that came after it copied and adapted it, it is because everyone played Gears of War and saw how well that worked there.
Did Kill/Switch do it first? Sure. Was it implemented well enough and was the game itself popular enough to have any sort of significant cultural impact? No. Is it interesting to note that mechanics or styles that later got popularised by a much more successful game were first attempted by lesser known or niche games? Sure. Does that change of the historical significance of what actually popularised the thing? Nope.
I disagree to an extent with this premise. Nintendo's stature in gaming is due to their quality of games and their stewardship of their properties. I'm mid 40 now and I'm excited for a Zelda game this year, just like I was as a teenager, in my 20s and in my 30s. Nintendo's quality apex for games has been so high for so long, it's only right that it is disproportionate in this nature. They've been in the zone basically for four decades.
Sorry I missed this post before. Right, so I actually agree that the article itself kinda misses the point when addressing the topic it's put forth. I had posted earlier in the thread that I think we basically need to separate the question of whether Nintendo is over-represented in regards to discussions of videogame history, from the actual article that make a very poor case for itself.
I also did say earlier that I do think if everything were considered objectively, Nintendo would still cleanly come out of everything with easily the most historical representation regardless, based on the merits of their own combined contributions. But I'm more directly speaking to whether or not their representation is proportionate to those contributions relative to the contributions of others. This is where I argue that it's not the case, and I think this is where our opinions start to diverge.
I definitely would agree that Mario 64 has more direct impact to the average gamer than Virtua Fighter does. But this gets into where I believe the ratios become skewed. Let's say if Mario 64 to Virtua Fighter was weighed at 70:30 in some objective manner (I realise this isn't actually possible to place any objective measure to), then modern historical discussion would make it appear closer to 98:2, and even more egregiously Tekken vs Virtua Fighter would look something like 90:10 also. And so this gets into where I say that mere modern popularity isn't a reasonable measure of impact even to the individual end users.
Let's take for example a modern popular brand like Dyson. This is a name that pretty much everyone today would have at the forefront of their mind if we were to talk about vacuum cleaners. But Dyson being a more known and familiar name despite being founded in 1991 is not more impactful on any of our day to day lives than say Hoover from 1908 is. Our collective ignorance regarding parts of history doesn't mean we're unimpacted it. It just means that over time there is a lot of potential for a current market leader to be disproportionately cited in discussions regarding an industry's history.
Yes. This is actually a very good point. You can't really accurately replicate or experience much of Sega's most influential titles in their original forms outside of a specialist retro arcade environment or videogame museum. It's not quite as simple is just distributing roms online.
I feel we've basically run our course going back and forth on this. You seem to be more fixated on the quality of what it offered, whereas your original post to me that it was not an early implementation of consumer VR at all. It was. It just sucked. As a result it's relatively unimportant in comparison to more successful example like Virtuality, VFX-1 and especially Oculus.
Labo VR was obviously better, but that's largely because it's standing on the shoulders of modern VR giants. In terms of it's place in VR history, it's less significant than Virtual Boy is.
Hmm I do think Nintendo and their games have earned their reputation but it does feel like they get a bit too much representation compared to some other influential games, like for example I think GTA3 should be up there with Mario 64 and OoT in terms of perception but it's not
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Only if you're in a bubble?