Talk:Video game crash of 1983/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Accolade Case

"Although Accolade achieved a technical victory in one court case against Sega, challenging this control, even it ultimately yielded and signed the Sega licensing agreement."

I don't think this is an accurate description of Sega Enterprises v. Accolade. The case is a significant precedent, holding that disassembly of computer code can be fair use, if it meets the test established in the opinion. The case is still read in law schools for this purpose, although the DMCA anti-circumvention provision might alter the analysis under current law. Accolade's victory was neither insignificant nor merely "technical." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.201.52 (talk) 08:37, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Talk Page Archived

The page was growing too big, so I archived it. Continue old discussions below, all that. Thanks!  Dylanlip  (talk) 13:37, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Video game versus PCs

the PC 'market' was also flooded with crap, why did it not have a crash similar o videogames? lots of markets are flooded with crap, but it doesnt take down the whole industry, or does it? i dont really understand this princple..... would appreciate some explanation....

There was a crash in the PC market, for a time, many companies were putting out computers, but that crashed, with a few hanging on for a while. Companies failed because this was a bubble, they were just throwing stuff onto the market whether or not it was any good. Computers had the advantage of being more flexible then video game systems. You could write your own games, or type some in from a listing in a book or magazine. Computers also had the capacity for doing productive work like speadsheets or word processing.--RLent (talk) 17:03, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

There absolutely was a crash in the PC market; the Mattel Aquariuses and TI 99-4/As and Coleco Adamses that were made by toy companies being the most direct examples. These were pre-crash home computers. After the crash, the home computer industry shook out to just commodore, atari and apple if you were rich.

I strongly disagree with this sentiment. In fact, I disagree with this being called the "North American video game crash". This is a console crash only. The two biggest game companies in the world, EA and Activision took off during this supposed crash. EA was expanding during this very year. The Commodore-64 was selling 2 million units a year during this era. By comparison, the NES, which supposedly pulled the industry out of the crash, only moved 2.5 million units in Japan during its first two years. Most of this perception that "games" crashed is due to writers at the time only labeling video game consoles at the time as "games business". It wasn't so much a crash as it was a shift to PCs.--- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.190.215.2 (talk) 22:42, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

That's correct that it's the home console market (what is referred to as the Consumer Video Game Market) that crashed. However,in a related note the low end home computer market did go through it's own cyclic crash as well - just separately and earlier (1981-1983). Chiefly due to Jack Tramiel and Commodore's aggressive price war that cannibalized the market during that period (as is also covered in the Wall Street Journal and other business publications at the time). That is also precisely why that as the consumer video game market was crashing, some firms (like Activision) switched over to the home computer market for their games. Just coming out of it's crash, it was seen as a much stronger market for the future (and the Commodore 64 was certainly helping in those regards). --Marty Goldberg (talk) 05:07, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The computer market most certainly did take a massive dive in the mid-80s for the similar reason of an oversaturated market with way too many competing, incompatible platforms. Commodore decimated all its low-end competition through price wars and even companies like Cromemco and Osbourne who made computers for the business or professional market all either went under or switched to producing IBM clones. One reason was that customers started realizing that the lofty promises made about the wonderous things a computer could do for them turned out not to be true. The video game crash did of course spill over into computer sales because gaming was a big selling point of home computers and that was of course no longer popular. By 1987, when sales were coming back, there was nothing left of personal computers in North America except Apple, IBM clones, and Commodore. Every other platform was history. The crash marked the abrupt transition from the age of 8-bit computers with BASIC for an OS, green-screen monochrome monitors, and floppy disk/cassette storage to the age of 16-bit computers with GUIs and hard disk storage.

As for the above-mentioned comment about EA growing during the mid-80s, that was true, however companies like them and Sierra focused entirely on the computer gaming market and didn't develop for consoles, so the collapse of that didn't affect them. Also, EA, Sierra, Microprose, Origin, and Broderbund were all companies that focused on the "traditional" computer gaming genres like RPGs and adventures. Those devs had produced arcade-style games, but they stopped doing it after 1984 and only did strat/RPG/adventure titles. A whole bunch of other computer game devs like DataSoft and Synapse did fold because they made strictly arcade stuff and had no adventure games or RPGs to fall back on. You didn't start seeing arcade-style games return to computers until '87, when of course Nintendo was on the rise and the arcades in the US were returning to life.

It should also be noted that recovery from the crash was a slow process that took several years. There were only a relatively small number of American-developed NES games because of the lack of game developers here and even most of the arcade ports released on computers in the 87-90 period came from European devs and were imported to North America. By the time the SNES came out however, tons of American game devs were in the business, either newly-formed ones or older names like EA that jumped into the business.

Hope this should provide a more detailed explanation of the crash. 151.213.57.73 (talk) 20:35, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Modern Day Security Features

The concepts of such a control system remain in use on every major video game console produced today, even with fewer “cartridge-based” consoles on the market than in the 8/16-bit era. Replacing the security chips in most modern consoles are specially-encoded optical discs that cannot be copied by most users and can only be read by a particular console under normal circumstances.

Wouldn't that explain the reasons behind mod chips and bioses in today's console systems? Just my opinion, but I think it does. LReyome254 (talk) 17:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Did this begin the paradigm of "Parental cynicism of video games"

Is this a possible cause for parents to think video games were "time wasters" for kids, and that the games lacked the ability to teach kids "good skills and lessons"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.110.102.215 (talk) 11:48, 3 November 2009 (UTC) no, they thought that in the 1st place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.193.197.88 (talk) 19:33, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Inflation Rates

In the article it states that video games typically would cost $35 in 1982, which is equivalent to "(about $114.15 when adjusted for inflation)". This cannot be right if this figure denotes US dollars, since $35US roughly equals about $77US now. Anyone care to clarify? Shawn M. O'Hare (talk) 08:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

You're right. The wrong year was in the inflation calculator. Fixed. Squire55 (talk) 20:53, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

• I have absolutely no idea what planet you are making this inflation comparison on... Is this our twin planet in that other galaxy? If those are valid statistics than they are utterly meaningless for a number of reasons. Clearly video games were expensive in 1983 because few people used or bought them as a relative comparison to now... So equal applications of inflation-adjusted costs are highly misleading. $100,000 then bought an equivalent $700,000 house now (at least in the New York Metropolitan region). A 1 bedroom apartment in NYC was only $300 or $400 per month. But then again if economic statistics were actual indicators of anything remotely reliable, economists would have been able to see the current economic depression years before it occurred...Stevenmitchell (talk) 19:06, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Video game crash in 2012?

I have been following the gaming scene since Super Mario Bros. came out on the old NES and I am wondering that there might be another video game crash sometime around Christmas 2012. The video games in the 2000s were simply atrocious and there are too many console systems to choose from. This is just like what the video gaming world was like before the "Crash of 1983." But this time, North America won't be affected by the crash. Japan and Europe are also going to be affected by this crash in a more globalized world. Right now, I believe that the video game industry will collapse sometime around December 21, 2012 (not because of the economic recession but because of the mediocre games being released in this day and age). GVnayR (talk) 03:42, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia article talk pages are not the place for this kind of wild speculation. Anyway, the overriding cause of the 1983 crash as agreed by all published experts on the topic was the oversaturation of the market with low-quality games that were quickly rushed to the market, mainly for the Atari 2600/VCS. Ultimately it boils down to two games: Pac-Man and E.T. The latter dealt the figurative death blow to the market because Atari was unable to recoup its disastrous losses after spending something like $25 million for the rights, plus millions more for promotion and manufacturing. I've never read anything from any expert on the subject that attributes the crash to "too many consoles" or some such nonsense - Atari was the market leader and considered the gold standard of videogames at the time and when Atari went down, so did the entire market. There have always been more than a few consoles on the market at any given time. Only two or three tend to survive the long-term. Were it not for all the garbage games being rushed to market, the horrible Pac-Man port, and finally the E.T. disaster, the industry would have quickly weathered the situation, recouping its losses with the 5200 and later the 7800. Laval (talk) 13:36, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

One fact that the article does not clearly address (again, due to too much original research and personal opinion infecting the article) is the fact that the crash happened almost solely due to factors affecting Atari and specifically games for their 2600 console, which was the market leader. Laval (talk) 13:44, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not an expert, but I've seen several documentaries on the Discovery channel (Rise of the Video Games to name just one) and one just the other night on CNBC that all state the same thing. Atari, as the market leader, caused the great game shakeup. That's not to say there weren't other players or even that Atari didn't continue on with other avenues, but on a macro-level the damage was done. Really, how many other consoles were there? The next avenue that opened up was the personal computer which allowed for other applications in addition to games. Mentor397 (talk) 14:25, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, December 21, 2012? Useight (talk) 15:29, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Useight, as they would say of GVnayR elsewhere on the internets, successful troll is successful :) TomorrowTime (talk) 12:52, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

GVnayR's statement has to be the best thing I've seen on a discussion article for some time haha. Good move.92.8.7.2 (talk) 00:48, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

"plethora"

Props to whoever used that word. Such a good, strong, noble, and sophisticated term. I applaud your enthusiasm and hope others follow your example.--ILoveSky (T | C) 00:07, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

8th generation is coming

When should we start including it in the article?24.113.207.119 (talk) 18:16, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Mario/Pacman?

"As a counterpoint, two of the most successful video game franchises were started in this period: Mario and Pac-Man."

Is this really a valid point to make? Pac-Man was primarily an arcade game at this point, which is a whole different market sector. And for Mario, it didn't really hit the home market properly until the NES a few years later. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.111.160.21 (talk) 01:19, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Huh? Pac-Man was a major home console port at that point, starting in '82. Likewise you're confusing Mario Bros. with Super Mario Bros. The arcade Mario Bros. was ported to home consoles in '83. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 01:45, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I've removed it, it's just your average pointless counterpoint thrown in for the sake of bein contrary, and isn't even all that accurate. Mario's from 1981 (Donkey Kong) and didn't exactly become well-known until Super Mario Brothers in 1985. Meanwhile, a Pac-Man game was part of the disaster, so it's extremely disingenious to act like it succeeded in spite of it. Herr Gruber (talk) 01:52, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

While this has been solved I would like to point out there is an arcade version of Super Mario bros. That is all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakandsig (talk • contribs) 02:01, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Core crash reasons not explained

The entry says that the core reason of the crash were Atari 2600's Pac-Man and E.T. But it doesn't explain how two games brought down an entire industry. There are plenty of big, high profile games that fail today (and often put the developer out of business — like Lair by Factor 5). Holding Pac-Man and E.T. responsible seems like hyperbole. --76.79.70.18 (talk) 02:54, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

The page is rightfully cautious in its claims, to prevent everyone from bringing in their personal theories.

However, you are correct PacMan/ET didn't kill the video game industry by themselves. At the time video games were a huge popular fad, and everyone ran out and bought Atari PacMan. The game wasn't very fun and the air started started coming out of the balloon. Meanwhile Atari totally over-estimated demand and flooded stores with millions of extra cartridges. (Think of The Simpsons' Disco Stu and his disco sales trend chart.) The end result was a fire-sale on excess inventory and Atari PacMan could be had for $2. Atarivideomusic (talk) 05:07, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Pac-Man was on Atari 2600 VCS in 1981, not as stated 1982. ET was on VCS in 1982 Both were not responsible for the video game crash, which happened actually in 1984. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.154.72.199 (talk) 21:17, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

That's not the case at all as far your claimed facts. Pac-Man was released for the VCS in March of 1982, not 1981. Likewise, the crash from from December 1982 through June of 1984. Those games certainly didn't kill the industry, but they did significantly add to Atari's woes and Atari was 80% of the home console industry at the time. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 04:58, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, why 'crash of 83'? The crash happened in 84, according to reading sources like Electronic Games, http://s357.photobucket.com/user/Alison123456789/media/01EGmarch1984_zpsc4fee11d.jpg.html?sort=6&o=4 http://s357.photobucket.com/user/Alison123456789/media/EGmarch1984_zpsbc61ac76.jpg.html?sort=6&o=5

No, that's not what your source says. It's talking about the shake out already underway not that it was just starting in 1984. In fact it even talks about Atari's financial difficulties in 1983 on the page you showed. The full spectrum of resources clearly shows it starting in December 1982, and gathering momentum throughout 1983, to come to it's finale in 1984.--Marty Goldberg (talk) 15:39, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Long-time impact.

Added based on offical sources:

he North American video game crash had two long-lasting results. The first result was that dominance in the home console market Eventually shifted from the United States to Japan (after the discontinuation of the Atari 7800). When the video game market recovered by 1986, Nintendo's NES and Atari's Atari 7800 were in fierce competition until the end of 1988. With some retailers having the 7800 selling out with NES's on the shelves.Atari 7800's selling out NES's still on shelves When Nintendo shipped 3 million units in 19873 million NES's in 1987. Atari still managed to keep up the momentum peaking into 1988. Where at the end of 1988 Atari has lost it's competitive edge with the lowest sales drop in video game history dropping to less than 700,000 in 1989 and under less than 99,000 in 1990 according to official Atari sales documents.Official Atari 7800 sales documents 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, and 1990. After Nintendo's later victory over Atari at the end of 1988, Nintendo became the dominate company over all in the U.S. until Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis in 1989, which later became the best selling home gaming console in North America during it's generation.http://www.netinst.org/Clements_Ohashi.pdf A huge difference from the failure of it's earlier console, the Master System to compete with the Atari 7800 and the NES.

After the 7800, Atari had failed to make another console that would compete with it's rivals. No other American company would sell over a million home video game consoles until the 3DO in 1993, and none would become a major player in the industry until Microsoft's entry with the Xbox in 2001.

About the sources you are using to back up these edits: This article merely states that quantities at a Milwaukee Toys'R'Us are "probably" sold out. This article lacks any context that would allow it to be used to back up the statements you are trying to make with it. It can not be used to indicate any kind of sales information over a wider period of time, nor can it be used to indicate any sales trends nationally or for the North American region. It is doubtful that it could even be used to back up any sales data for the city of Milwaukee at that specific time period, as it lacks hard data and seems to be an anecdotal, off-the-cuff remark in an opinion column. As for the other two sources in the quoted section, Wikipedia articles - existent or nonexistent - can not be used as sources. Please see WP:SOURCE as to what constitutes a reliable, verifiable source. The way this quoted edit stands, I do not think it should be added to the article. 66.18.219.221 (talk) 19:30, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

The issue is you looked only at one source instead of all, each with factual sales data that shows there being a close competitive scene. If you focus on one thing you won't see the whole picture. All the sources together make the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakandsig (talk • contribs) 19:52, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

About the other sources: Can you link to them here please? The only other one I could get to properly open was this one, and that information might be better suited for the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game) article. 66.18.219.221 (talk) 20:02, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

So basically all the sources, even quoted in this very page, you are not pretending do not exist? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakandsig (talk • contribs) 20:21, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

That is not what I said. Please re-read my above comments for clarification. I could only get two of your sources to open in my browser. Can you post your additional sources here please? 66.18.219.221 (talk) 20:27, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

What is stopping you from clicking on the links above? You clearly are not trying here: Atari 7800's selling out NES's still on shelves3 million NES's in 1987.Official Atari 7800 sales documents 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, and 1990.http://www.netinst.org/Clements_Ohashi.pdf

The <ref></ref> links you provided above do not work on this talk page, can you please post the original URLs? Also, there is no need to insult people, we are all here to help Wikipedia. 66.18.219.221 (talk) 21:17, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

About the four sources above (thanks Asher196 for making them appear on this talk page): I talked about this article above and why I think it can not be used to substantiate the claim made above. This source and this source appear to be Wikipedia articles that either do not exist or have been deleted. Wikipedia can not be used as a source. This PDF does contain some sales percentage data, particularly on page 25. This might be useful in another article, but I don't think it is a strong enough source to substantiate the above claim all by itself, as it only contains sales data from 1994 onward. The Sega Genesis was released in 1989 in North America, so a full five years of its life are unaccounted for. In my opinion, more sources would need to be found, and it doesn't belong here in this article anyway. 66.18.219.221 (talk) 01:08, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Adjustments

I had included corrections to dates and times (Including a late 1988 lead by the NES) as well as intial success from the 7800 and included Sega Mastersystem numbers as well.

Had also included other various sales figure sources as references to niche consoles after the action max. Included reference to Nuon tech as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakandsig (talk • contribs) 01:54, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Nintendo Test Market "Failure"

Once again, user:jakandsig has returned to wikipedia to push POV edits in a disruptive manner through inappropriate use of sources. This time, he has chosen to cherry-pick news articles (which he fails to even cite properly) to portray the Nintendo test market as a "failure." Now, I don't believe anyone, except maybe some direct Nintendo sources, attempt to portray the 1985 test market as a runaway success or as the first real stage of the video game industry revival, but to call it a failure contradicts the majority of sources. No, you cannot just pick the newspaper article you like and ignore the rest.

So anyway, here is a sampling of quotes from 1986 newspaper articles that mention the test market. This is by necessity incomplete based on the sources I have access to, but this is everything I could find in Newsbank and ProQuest:

Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - Tuesday, January 14, 1986: "Nintendo , a Japanese company that attempted to introduce a new video-game machine over Christmas, failed miserably, retailers say." (This is the article that Jakandsig cites in the article)

The Seattle Times - Sunday, April 13, 1986: "With a quick-hit advertising campaign, they sold over 100,000 units in New York during Christmas. They're in the middle of a similarly successful campaign in Los Angeles at present. Seattle and most of the rest of the country will have to wait until late summer or early fall, but it looks like Nintendo 's new, improved home game system is going to be a tremendous success."

San Jose Mercury News (CA) - Monday, June 2, 1986: "As it does in Japan, the Sega machine faces an uphill battle against the Nintendo Entertainment System, which was a hit when introduced in New York City last Christmas."

The Seattle Times - Tuesday, June 3, 1986: "Nintendo , a six-year-old subsidiary of Japan's leading maker of electronic games Atari [sic], says it has already shipped 200,000 systems to dealers in some U.S. cities after first introducing the product last fall in New York, where 90 percent of the consoles were sold to consumers, leaving many retailers sold out before Christmas."

Wichita Eagle, The (KS) - Sunday, June 15, 1986: "WHY ARE retailers willing to give video games another shot? The most likely reason is the success that the Nintendo machine had in the New York area.

It did extremely well at Christmas," said Tom Brennan, audio-video manager at the Orange, N.J., outlet of Brick Church, an East Coast electronics chain. "We had a lot of people who even shipped it out of state."

So of all the newspapers that commented on the success or failure of the test launch in New York, one characterizes it as a failure and four characterize it as a success. There are also several more articles that I did not bother quoting here that mention the test market, but do not characterize it as a success or a failure. Of course, all it takes is a little common sense to realize the test was not a "failure": If it had been, Nintendo would have never launched the system anywhere else, nor would retailers like Toys R Us that agreed to stock the system in New York have agreed to carry it in other cities.

Now there is no question that some writers in the past have tried to over-state the "success" of the test market and portray it as the moment video games returned to prominence, and that would be equally as preposterous a claim to make. A "failure" however, is the inability to achieve a desired result. Nintendo wanted to prove that a new video game system could sell at retail, and they did that. Did they sell a lot? No. Did they succeed in bringing back the industry then and there? No. Did they slowly spread to other cities and continue to gain positive press coverage and excite demand until the video game industry posted gains in 1986? Absolutely, and the sources back it up. Cherry-picking the one negative report out of a sea of neutral and positive reports is as dishonest as it is inaccurate. Indrian (talk) 21:53, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

You are going by what people decided to say instead of what actually happened. Why do you think there were two test launches? Some of your articles launch numbers don't even add up unless you include both test launches. The person you seem to complain to wgungfu even used the same source in another article. You also don't even know what POV and using your standing to say a bunch of nonsense. in fact, the whole failure part was not even my quote it was your friends you you tried to talk to to say i was making bad edits. hurts doesn't it?

We got one report saying that retailers were not satisfied and you have already admitted Nintendo sold only around half their consoles. they also had another test launch/. Why do you think there was another test launch? Second, you added the SMS when that failed form the start and sold only 500,000 by 1988 as provided by the other article sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakandsig (talk • contribs) 22:26, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't have to "prove" anything; you are the one attempting to change the article. It really does not matter that the sources are all over the place in terms of total sales and anything else because you are trying to use a contemporary newspaper article to demonstrate that the test was a "failure" and I have shown that the majority contemporary newspaper articles labelled it a "success." Wikipedia relies on reliable sources for its information, and your attempts to interpret the sources are impermissible original research.

Also, I understand it must be frustrating to be unable to change articles to reflect your own personal view of the world, but you really need to stop with the childish personal attacks too. They really do not bother me, but they do insure that no one around here will take you seriously. Indrian (talk) 22:42, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I am not the one trying to change the view of the world. You are, including you in this very section stating that you could be wrong but using your sources as fact. You always act childish and run to random people lying about me doing POV's when you are the one who won't even read the articles. It's funny because the very people who you run to like wgungfu are the ones that basically support the article, so i guess he is on a POQ triad as well You are a pathetic little man.

Hopefully he will clear up your mistakes, as I have directed the thread to you. I also like how you don't actually answer anything on the talk page. it's kind of sad, like including the SMS. When it does not make any sense factually. All you do is change things to your liking and then when there are questions you will criticize others but you won't answer questions by other people, instead you claim they are trying to change the view to their liking. an idiot you are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakandsig (talk • contribs) 22:52, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

NES 19 million

The NES in North America did not sell 19 million by 1989. Sources include NA shipments of the SNES being 3 million in 1987 and already in the the article of this topic, seven million were sold by 1989. Sources: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19880409&id=klpWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mu8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4634,5262094 http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1917&dat=19880404&id=tHEhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=TogFAAAAIBAJ&pg=995,823773 http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&dat=19881224&id=-jEyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=RxQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6951,2635911 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakandsig (talk • contribs) 00:41, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

• Actually, you are misquoting that Compute! article. Here is what it actually says: "But last year alone, Nintendo sold 7 million game consoles." The magazine is from 1989, so 1988 sales were 7 million by themselves. So that's 10 million for just 1987 and 1988. In 1990, the New York Times reported that Nintendo sold 9.2 million systems in North America in 1989 (http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/08/business/waiting-for-the-zapping-of-nintendo.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm), so that brings us to over 19 million already without even factoring in 1986 sales, which should be between 1 and 2 million. So yes, the source that claims that by 1990, Nintendo had sold over 19 million consoles in the US is, in fact, correct based on the sources you and I have provided. This also lines up with Kent's figures as mentioned previously, which reaches the same result of around 21 million by 1990. The reason the yearly figures are different there is because he is reporting fiscal year sales, which ran for Nintendo at that time from September to August, rather than calendar year sales. Indrian (talk) 01:14, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

ok. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakandsig (talk • contribs) 01:27, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

E.T. and Pac-Man

I am wondering why these games are mentioned. Neither of these games were ever for a long time considered even part of the crash and it was random guessing that put these two game software on the map in the first place. I am also fairly certain that there is no proof that E.t. and Pac-Man were financial failuires. The most I can see is that sells for the former slowed, but Pac-man continued to sell regardless.

I don't think random speculation that was never a thing into relatively recently should be allowed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leeroyhim (talk • contribs) 16:01, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Flooded console market

I believe that we should reword (before I expand) this section as "flooded console market" applies to the Next set of consoles and the 3D era as well. I also do not believe that "many had large third-party libraries" applies to systems like the Vector and Arcadia etc.

BTW, what does wikipedia use as a source for its generation line-up? Well using it, 3rd and 5th had just as many consoles. There are also a load of consoles current generation. Half the systems back then did not even succeed or have much of a library, so I think software would be the more valid reason. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leeroyhim (talk • contribs) 16:05, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

WP:LEAD

Jakandsig insists on bloating the lead with excessive material about sales figures. What once stopped at "NES" now states: "The video-game industry was revitalized a few years later, mostly due to the initial success of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Atari 7800, the former which was soft launched in New York City in late 1985 (then released nationwide in 1986) and the latter in 1984 (Then due to the sell of Atari was delayed until 1986) and both had become extremely popular in North America by 1987.[4][5] Both sold over 2 million units by 1988.[6][7]" This is seriously wrong. Reliable sources cited in the article overwhelmingly credit Nintendo with reviving the market, even though both the Sega Master System and Atari 7800 came out around the same time. Jakandsiq is engaging in a subtler form of original research than he has elsewhere, because his analysis of the sales figures cannot be used to contradict what reliable sources say, and he isn't even properly citing those numbers. Because these details are so obviously undue for the lead, I urge their immediate revert.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:56, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Atari 7800 and NES

I notice there is a lot of conflict with these two systems. But i would like to clarify a few things on both sides from what I am seeing in the view history tab.

1. First, I would like to mention that there are multiple sources, and i will provide them as they are asked, that do not show at all, that in 1985, the NES took the NA market by storm. it was a test launch, pure and simple. This is actually also put into slightly vague but more detail in the NES's own wikipedia page.

2.There are multiple sources where the big 3 systems of that time, mostly in NA but hey, that is what this article is about, that CLEARLY shows that the market embraced all 3 consoles equally with tons of praise. There was no advantage for either of the 3 consoles in 1986. It was an even market.

3.There are also mutliple sources, including sales figures and statements from both companies, that show that the 7800 and NES for the first couple years after launch, were both successful. While one can speculate that the NES policies locking out third-parties, as well as the Xegs and 2600 cannibalizing possibly the 7800's sales (the drop is pretty big when you look at the sales figures after 1988), it does not change the fact that the market was already restored by that time. There is also an article I replaced from another user called jak, with a source I feel really shows the LTD of consoles up until mid 1988 were proof enough of all that I am saying. This is also with less retailer support in the beginning in Ataris case with the model 7800.

4.I would like to expand on the history of the article, and would like to add in a new section called post crash and pre-crash so that I can input events leading up to the crash from magazine/newspaper scans, as well as actual statements reported in interviews and radio channels, to the Crash, and provide the same for after the crash. Although there are too many reverts of the whole page happening way too much for this to be possible at the moment.

Please excuse the shortened sentences as I am typing to on a portable device, and the auto-correct causes many issues that I am sure some of you know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leeroyhim (talk • contribs) 03:18, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree with everything you are saying here and agree that sources back up all you have stated (though with the current tensions here I would not recommend adding anything without appending said sources).

Just as a clarification, I believe the only thing I took issue with personally on this page was the characterization of the 1985 test launch as a "failure." I am well aware as you stated above that the test did not bring back the market by itself or show to the word that video games were back. I am also aware that Nintendo may have only sold half their stock (though sources do differ on that point), which would not be a great commercial showing. However, multiple sources will attest that Nintendo's goal was to demonstrate that in a tough market they could both convince retailers to carry the system and generate public interest. The company was proven right on both counts and took what they learned in New York and did a second, more commercially successful test in Los Angeles. If the test had been a "failure," then retailers like Toys R Us and Macy's that supported the New York test would have refused to carry it anywhere else and the NES may have never been heard from again. Indrian (talk) 03:37, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I would appreciate you adding better sources or a new section, but try not to bloat the lead further. Also, try to find what historians say rather than analyzing sales figures yourself. Regarding the test launch: Nintendo did sell half their inventory (about 50,000 units) at New York, and that was a success. New York was chosen because it was "the toughest market in America" to break into, and "a large percentage of the retailers that carried the NES decided to continue carrying it after the holidays." While "not a smash hit...it was enough to prove Yamauchi's point that videogames were not dead." (Steven L. Kent's Ultimate History of Videogames, pg. 293, 298).TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 06:21, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Exactly, both Kent and Sheff (in Game Over) label it a success alongside multiple newspaper accounts in 1986 as listed above. Reliable sources disagree, however, on whether the system sold 50,000 or 90,000 units. Nintendo announced 90,000 at the time, but that may have been what retailers agreed to take rather than sell through. Indrian (talk) 06:27, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I am confused with what you are saying. I am not the one who edited the test launch being a failure, although technically test launches should not even matter in this case as if i recall the 7800 test launch was a success before the delay which got a lot of people mad. But it's a test launch. Now again, i am not the one who put that edit there. What I am saying is that these two consoles are equally responsible. They both had sold to millions, and both were highly anticipated. I am however trying to solve this issue before adding my extra 10,000 words of history from magazine ,newspaperscans, and interviews. It seems we are at least in some agreement.Leeroyhim (talk) 14:55, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I know you were not the one to add the info about the test launch being a failure, so no worries. I was just adding my two cents on how it should be characterized. The test launch was important not because it brought video games back, but because it brought several large retailers on board that may have avoided video games otherwise. It is no coincidence that Nintendo had better distribution in 1986 than Atari and Sega, even though, as you said, the press welcomed all three consoles equally. Indrian (talk) 15:38, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that is why it's so surprising how close Atari managed to be with brand name alone. As i think even at launch Sega actually had more retailer support. Not to mention articles implying stock sold out. I figure we removed the failure link, but reword and keep my initial edit. Leeroyhim (talk) 15:56, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

That should work. Just do be sure to source it, not because I personally doubt you (I have read sources that agree with everything you have said on the talk page), but because the recent difficulties will probably make everyone a little bit jumpy about unsourced changes. Indrian (talk) 16:10, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I did not find the statement that you saw in the revert I made. Maybe you already removed it?Leeroyhim (talk) 16:26, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it was successfully removed earlier. I just wanted to make sure it did not come back. Indrian (talk) 16:30, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I still think this is too much detail for the lead: "The video-game industry was revitalized a few years later, mostly due to the initial success of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Atari 7800, the former which was soft launched in New York City in late 1985 (then released nationwide in 1986) and the latter in 1984 (Then due to the sell of Atari was delayed until 1986) and both had become extremely popular in North America by 1987.[4][5] Both sold over 2 million units by 1988.[6][7]" I assume the details are there to try to make your case that 7800 was "as influential" as NES, without having a RS directly saying so.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 18:18, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I am not even sure if you are using the word influential in the context i am reading it in. The point of the edit from the sources, is these two who were competitors, both brought back million of players to the market, restored retailer confidence, and had systems going back to selling significant amounts. I am not entirely sure how this statement makes both the consoles as influential as each other. In fact, I would not call either of these consoles influential at all. But again, I have no idea what way you are stating.

If you for some reason mean influential in terms of impactual(I know that's not a word lol) to the revival of the crash, than that might be because you are leaning more toward one side. In 1986 all consoles were approached equally and the people brought these two consoles in droves that brought the industry back up. The Master System sold <100k, the other NEW consoles sold <20k.

If you mean in terms of the popularity the NES became eventually, with merchandise and being included in Movies and TV shows as the 2600 before it, that was way after the crash was over. NES peaked at the debatable period around end of 88 and much of 89, where most of its sales came from. And continued with strong sales in 1990 as well until the genesis finally gained steam in 1991.

But the more I read your other edits and this talk page, the more I think that you believe that this is decreasing the NES's importance. The NES was still important, It brought the industry above the $3billion it had before, and when the Genesis and TG16 came out that also went even higher.It was a popular device, but during the crash recovery, it was no "single-handed" job that a lot of people want to or have been told to believe. It's been wrong for a very long time, and I want to work to make every video game page (and computer page) on wikipedia accurate so that people will be able to state the actual happenings and it won't continue to look like a joke in a lot of other communities.Leeroyhim (talk) 20:03, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Of course you're trying to decrease the NES' importance, which is why you keep going on and on about how "there was equal love for all three consoles equally!" I have no agenda other than WP:RS and WP:LEAD guidelines. You misrepresented your edit in the edit summary, and there is no consensus for your reinserting Jakandsig's redlinked supposed primary sources and excessive detail in the lead.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:05, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Why did you, Leeroyhim, refer to this revision by Jakandsiq as "my version"? Are you operating both accounts?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:11, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I would agree that the detail is excessive for the lead, but I do think it is okay for most of it to be in the article. In the press, all three consoles were given equal treatment and were together taken as a sign the market was coming back. It is also true that Atari sold a decent number of 7800 systems. We can take this too far, however. The press might have treated them equally, but retailers and distributors heavily favored the NES. Also, the sales data we have shows that the NES did outsell the 7800 at a ratio of about 3-1 in 1986 and 1987 and by even more in 1988. Unfortunately, we have no good 2600jr. figures to demonstrate Atari's overall hardware picture, but as sources pretty consistently credit the company with a market share between 15% and 20% by the middle of 1988, they were clearly not on the level of Nintendo. In short, I think its fine to mention the NES, 7800, and SMS as bringing back market interest together, but we cannot forget that at the end of the day, the NES crushed the competition. I also think calling the 7800 "extremely popular" is going way to far when looking at the comparable sales and the market share data. Also saying that both systems sold over 2 million by 1988 is incredibly misleading, because that implies equal footing when Nintendo's sales were actually about double that (and that LA Times article specifically gives Atari's total hardware sales, so that is 7800 and 2600 together, not just the 7800 as the proposed version states). Indrian (talk) 02:08, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Indrian you are incorrect. The 2 million refers to 7800 sales. it literally matches the sales figures we got from Curts numbers, as by the end of that same year the 7800's LTD end up being past 3 million.

TheTimesAreAChanging, your date watching is bad. My revert was 3 reverts before the point you are mentioning. When i clearly mentioned i changed the link for one of the sources.

i noticed TheTimesAreAChanging reverted the previous consensus for some reason, when technically, the consensus was already met before Indrians incorrect claim of the 2 million atari units mentioned in the Latimes article was for more than the 7800's but was also the 2600's, which as I mentioned above, is wrong because it is literally in line with the sales figures. Either way, we are still on the talk page, so i have no problem waiting until we resolve this first. Especially since my browser is apparently breaking links at the moment. Leeroyhim (talk) 18:25, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

No, the LA Times article says that Atari has sold 2 million "game systems," not 2 million "7800 systems." The article also specifically mentions the 2600 as Atari's best-selling product (not in the current period, but over the life of Atari as a company), so the author is aware of it. Remember, Curt's figures are units sold by Atari to distributors and retailers, not sell through, so those numbers will not line up perfectly with retail sales. Atari had sold about 1.6 million units to retailers by the end of 1987, but some of those will have been sold through to consumers in early 1988, while a small number of them were also returned without being sold through, which Curt's figures also track. Its an apples and oranges problem to compare Curt's figures to the LA Times figures. Either way, it does not matter. Stating that Atari and Nintendo had both sold over two million systems by the middle of 1988 is a misleading statement that implies the companies were on equal footing when Nintendo had actually outsold Atari two to one by that point. Indrian (talk) 20:33, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the only time I'm aware of that they were on equal footing was in '86. However, after the '86 holiday season was over Nintendo was shown already far ahead of Atari Corp. and Sega. As far as news sources in '86, in the summer they were stating that the presence of consoles by Nintendo and Atari on the market (and the then forthcoming console by Sega) was pointing to a revived console industry. At that point there was no favoriting any console and all three (even Sega's yet to be shown Master System) were shown in this light. However as the national launches started through the fall, Nintendo was getting most of the coverage showing a clear favorite at least in the media. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 21:25, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Indrian, both these systems, even with the small numbers that were sold back, were at least over 2 million around that time no matter what source you use. It seems rather clear to me whether 2 million or 1 million is accurate, they had both shipped a significant amount to retailers from 1986-1988. If anything that proves the NES was not the Single'Handed reason the industry came "revived". The numbers are too high to come to that statement, no matter if NES outsold the 7800 3:1 by the end of 88 or 16:1 in 89. In fact, the most media coverage the NES got when showered with praise, along with Atari not really interacting with the press much, was in 1988.

I will agree that they were not on equal footing. since the sources I used NEVER said they were. But, the number were cloe enough for a time to at least be competitive at the time. It also seems silly that "widespread success" and "1985" are even in the same sentence because those test launches did not stop the majority of the media praising all 3 systems before the national launches. It's also misleading because it implies that the NES was an instant success, and reived the industry before the other two consoles were involved. which Goldberg has just stated is false.

So when you look at it that way, that statement makes no sense whatsoever. I think there should at least be a re-wording. I understand what both you two above this post are saying. But I see no reason to believe that the 7800 was not partially involved, given 1986 media before both launched nationwide, and the numbers we currently have. I think all we need to do is agree on what re-wording we should do. Because the current revision is inaccurate as of the time i am writing this.Leeroyhim (talk) 22:15, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

No, they were never close. In 1986, Nintendo sold a million or so systems, while Atari shipped roughly 286,000 (and sold slightly less since the figures we are relying on are not sell through). In 1987, it was 3 million versus 1.3 million. In 1988, 7 million versus 1.4 million. Atari was being outsold at a rate of three to one on hardware in its most competitive years and had less than one-third of Nintendo's market share. This is why there are no reliable sources that back a revisionist narrative that Atari competed closely. At the Summer 1986 CES, the press was happy to report favorably on all three systems and point towards a market revival, but once actual sales figures came in, the momentum was all Nintendo's. In your first post, you said all you wanted to do was say that the market revived in 1986 rather than during Nintendo's 1985 test launch, that all three consoles were given a fair shake in the press in 1986, and that the Atari 7800 experienced more success than many people realize. Instead of doing that you restored an edit from a disruptive editor that claimed Atari and Nintendo were neck-and-neck until 1988 and that Atari was just as influential as Nintendo in reviving the industry. The former would have been fine; the latter rewrites history and is not supported by any reliable sources. Indrian (talk) 02:11, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Incorrect, the disruptive poster reverted to MY edit. So i re-reverted to my edit. This has been pointed out in two different areas of wikipedia. (where I said multiple times I changed a link)

Second, I never said they were neck and neck, whether it IMPLIED it is another thing, which is why I said we should discuss a way to RE-WORD IT. My point was the that two systems reached millions of people and sold a significant amount of consoles in a short amount of time. Which is why I said there should be re-wording. 1.3 to 3 million is not that far of a gap let me be really clear.

The 7800, as i said, should be involved in some partial way since it factually had in the same short time, reached millions of consumers after a time where that was scene as something that may not happen again. If anything, I would say a quote likes this might work "In 1986, the NES and Atari 7800 had revitalize the industry by regaining retailer confidence and selling millions of consoles to consumers, which was previously though to have been unlikely after Video games were considered fads earlier. Although the 7800 contributed an important part, The NES had a greater impact, and ended up becoming the best selling console of its time with lots of media praise:

Now surely that can be reworded since I just typed that in 2 seconds, but something like that would be more accurate given the numbers we have. No one is saying Atari did what Nintendo did. That is nowhere to be found in this conversation.Leeroyhim (talk) 02:28, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

You have either confused yourself or just admitted you are a sock puppet, because Jakandsig added the language I am referring to on January 29, which was a day before your account existed. You then re-added it on February 1 with an edit summary saying it was your version even though another account added it. Anyway, your proposed language still will not do because there are to my knowledge no sources that indicate the 7800 revitalized the industry or had anything to do with restoring retailer confidence. You have to stick to what the sources say; this is pure original research. Indrian (talk) 02:57, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Lack of 1977 crash page.

I could have sworn there was one before was it deleted? The little mention it gets now has almost no information, and I want to make sure that when i create a new page it is not for something that already exists.

I also added the comparison between this and the current article in the main article page. Oops, forgot to credit myself. Tigersuperman (talk) 19:26, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

It's mostly a myth anyways and the year is wrong. The industry was hit hard in '78, not '77 and it was as a result of the exploding popularity of handheld electronic games that season. Pong consoles did not leave en-masse in '77, in fact there were a significant amount of dedicated consoles released in '77 and no evidence of deep price cuts in ads for said consoles that year. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 19:56, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I was just about to say the same thing. I would also add that the programmable market never stopped growing through the entire period, though 1978 sales ended up being lower than projections due to the market shift. The only market that fell apart was the dedicated market, which failed as a result of new technology (handhelds on the low end and programmables on the high end) rather than a collapse in electronic games generally. As Marty alluded to, dedicated console sales actually increased in 1977 over the year before, although less than market projections. It was 1978 when this market collapsed. Indrian (talk) 20:03, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but 1977 was the start of it. It's like the Crash of 83, technically the Crash actually happened in 84, so i figured the reason people like you guys did not edit the date was because that's when it started. Tigersuperman (talk) 21:50, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

In the sense that figures came in below projections in 1977, you can certainly say the market was not up to expectations in 1977. However, 1978 was the year that the market fell apart. It was not a video game crash though, because the programmable system market continued to grow. It would be more properly be called the crash of the dedicated console market. Likewise it would not be fair to say that Atari (or Fairchild) "revived" the industry, because it was the new programmable technology that ended the dedicated market. It was a hardware transition, not a crash. Indrian (talk) 21:52, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Exactly, it was a transition. Likewise I'm not sure how it can be said anything started in '77 like it did in '82 (which is when the console "crash of '83'" started, and no it was not actually in '84 but rather over a period of time). Rather in '78 you had dedicated console makers leaving the market and the more established companies like Atari and Coleco leave the dedicated market as well, but then have everything (dedicated and programmable) hit that year by handheld and tabletop electronic games anyways. It's a different situation. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 03:12, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Again, I said 1977 because I assumed that's when it started. which is why I assumed this page was called the crash of 83, when the crash was actually in 84. You are right about the dedicated market crashing, but the value of home consoles did not rebound until the end of 1978 and arguably 1979. If this page is called the crash of 83 because you think it started in 83 than that is a bit inaccurate.Tigersuperman (talk) 22:13, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Let me add that I can be very wrong here. So don't think I am saying that I am right about this 100% Tigersuperman (talk) 22:16, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Indrian Backtrack.

Indrian if you see this you backtracked the the previous page with this according to "view history"= Need some sources for that, and the stuff about the Channel F is not even true. Fairchild competed most closely to Atari in 1977 which was before the 1978 (yes '78) downturn. Reliable sources peg the revival to Space Invaders in 1980

However this only applied to the second part of my previous edit. Which is being discussed in a different part of this...Talk section? But what about the assistance part? In 1986 and 1987, the majority of the people were excited for games in general, You can see that here, but also a little over here, with a splash over here, and a dab over here, and here, and last here.

Now, I am fairly new and only just recently looked through the policies, but I think that the NES had some ""widespread"" assistance (that was a joke). I think the Crash was over by the points in the links above, and I think I have enough journalistic sources to at least have some people agree with it as per the rules of the website. I also assume those same rules are also in the Teahouse I have been invited to which I may check out later. I also am surprised to find the Xegs did well in one of those. Too bad we don't have sales numbers.

Actually why I am here I can ask if Vgchartz is a reliable source.Tigersuperman (talk) 22:10, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I suspect that this is yet another sockpuppet of Jackandsig--Asher196 (talk) 22:17, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

So do I. I already left a message at TheTimesAreAChanging's page about this a couple hours ago, since he made the initial sock puppet report about leeroyhim, but I have not heard back yet. Indrian (talk) 22:20, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Don't people have anything better to do than sockpuppet Wikipedia? I mean honestly. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 03:07, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Massive Article Change, need users to check over.

PLEASE READ FIRST: After lurking around before posting this as well as the changes in the article, it may not be in my best interest to edit this page, however, the amount I have worked on these changes has almost broke my patience since it took so long, and I would rather submit these changes and have others look over it than start all over again later. This paragraph has been added at the last minute as I explore my notifications and read through this talk page. The reason for my submission hiatus is the current assumptions about me that are appearing in my notification page. I am hoping that the current assumptions about me will not extend further since I am detailing all the changes I have made. I was working on this and the main article for about 2 hours and sat on it without submitting for about the same amount of time due to these notifications. So as a caution, I have been reading through numerous wikipedia pages to ensure I made these article changes correctly. Please read and hopefully answer the original post below:

I have made a massive change to the main article on this page, and because I believe these changes are enough to reshape over 50% of the article, I will need users to look over it and make suggestions or to fix any edits that I may have messed up on. Correction summaries include,

1.Consumer demand for new systems

2.Quotations by developers on stock and sales.

3.Changes in the factors section.

4.Adding a new title toward the bottom of the page containing post crash information.

5.Moving certain mentions to other parts of the article.

6.Removal of a lot of text that had no source to back their meanings or context.

7.Added mention of 3rd generation market leader as I believe it is relevant.

8.Added more to the flooded console list

I also added a lot of Citation tags and would have added more in other places with questionable information but I only did a few in fear i may violate the clean policies of the site. I did not want to clutter the whole page with citation tags, and that is actually why i removed a lot of the information that seemed to have no relation to the contents in the article.

Examples of some of my changes other than removals:

A. I added sources that contained information of excitement of new game consoles as a reason for the industry recoveries in 2 different areas, one a new section created by me called "post-crash @ Recovery" which I believe added some missing information.

B. I added sources that include statements from company representatives, mostly post-crash.

C. I Added several Citation Needed Tags in the article.

D. I added numerous mentions of 3rd generation leader next to the word "Nintendo" since I though that would be relevant. The reason is because that is the generation where the recovery happened, and since I mentioned the coming of 4th generation consoles, that information IMO is practically required.

E. I added numerous sources to the article. The sources all go to the reference websites which all contain news reports. Looking at the reference section at the bottom of the page, it seems my references stick out and am not sure how to fix them. If anyone knows how to make the links contain the name of the source instead of just the url link that would be great.

I am hoping many users will look over these changes that I have made. The link to the changes can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983&diff=594299743&oldid=594273436

So look over the additional information I added and take a look at the my source links, which should all lead to the material that back up my information. I would also take any source you may find better than my own that mentions anything similar to what I added, or that if you think certain details are not correct.KombatPolice (talk) 01:25, 7 February 2014 (UTC) I would like to add the fact you I got the majority from my referenced from Newslibrary.com and Googlenewspapers as well as Compute! Magazine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KombatPolice (talk • contribs) 01:57, 7 February 2014 (UTC) I am sorry, I Mean page 88 of Compute! Magasine, May 1988 edition.KombatPolice (talk) 02:00, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

• I will have to look over all of this in more detail, but I think you have finally done a good edit here that adheres to the sources, provides factual information, and properly gives both Atari and Sega credit without detracting from Nintendo's overall dominance. Every new persona that appears seems to get a little nicer and a little more accurate than the one before. You might actually have a future around here, but you need to let some of these various blocks play out first. Take a break for a few weeks, come back under your original name, and I think all might actually be well. Indrian (talk) 02:11, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I read your statements, and while I am happy that you are checking over my changes, I checked the post you made in the SPI page. There is practically zero similarities to the changes I made and the changes you sourced from other users. I see no relation whatsoever and the goals are completely different. I can even see that in this talk page, and that is why I put the notice at the top of this topic. Hopefully they will show you this later on. Ah, forgot to sign back in.\KombatPolice (talk) 02:19, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Coleco Adam is an add-on.

I didn't want to continue reverting too much. Just wanted to show that the Coleco Adam was an add-on for the colecovision and had a separate standalone available. In fact, i believe the Add-on was released first. http://oldcomputers.net/adam.htmlKombatPolice (talk) 22:34, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

• No, the Coleco Adam was a computer as the page you just linked to states. What you are trying to refer to is the ColecoVision Expansion Module #3, which could be used to convert the ColecoVision into a computer and was also marketed under the Adam brand name. It is, admittedly, a minor distinction. Either way, the article is about consoles not computer systems, so the Adam add-on has little to do with the proliferation of console standards. As for you attempt to include the Intellivision II as a separate system, there is no basis for doing that at all. It is the exact same system in a cost reduced form, no different in that way from the 2600jr or the new NES model Nintendo released in the early 1990s. Indrian (talk) 22:49, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

You actually left Intellvision II there last time and it was there before I made the changes. Also, I never said that the Adam was not a computer, not sure if you read the very first sentence I wrote. I just figured that the Adam took away consoles sales since computers were a reason for some of the revenue being lost but It's ok if it is removed.KombatPolice (talk) 23:43, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I removed both as agreed, and split the numbers from the sales that you unintentionally reverted.KombatPolice (talk) 23:52, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Copied games

There was a sentence at the top of the article that talked about copied games. i replaced it with Cloned because I believe that is a better term since It seemed a lot had near identical gameplay but had featured cosmetic changes ot slight changes to the gameplay. Such as Ladybug compared to Pac-Man. To me, copied games mean 100% taken or very close to that. Does anyone agree with this change?KombatPolice (talk) 00:05, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Flooded Console Market Should Be Removed

Flooded Console Market is a myth that has never made sense. The listed culprits outside the 2600/Colecovision/intellivison are the Astrocade, the Vectrex, the Arcadia, The Fairchild 2, and the 5200.

Fair Child dropped out and gave Atari the market, when another company brought the assets the second fairchild branded system had a limited release. The Astrocade only had a brief run before changes were made and it ended up being mail order only, the Arcadia had limited releases in NA and had most of its releases in Europe and Asia, and even that is being wrong because most of those were clones. the 5200 was downgraded to a mail order consoles around a year after launch difficulties, and it was buy Atari. The Vectrex was a limited release.

In Comparison:

The Sega Master System, Nintendo System, Atari 7800, Atari XEGS, The CommodoreGS, and (not sure why it's under 3rd) the Sg-1000 all sold over 1 million AT LEAST. So confusion due to tons of libraries would make more sense here.

Another comparison:

the TG16, Genesis, Super Nintendo, CD-I, The Sega CD, the 32X, the TG16cd, and the Neo-Geo all had over 50+ games and almost all sold over 1 million. Except the Neo-Geo, which still had 50+ games.

So I think the flooded console market section should be amended since the comparisons show that could not have been a factor. FriedBandicoot (talk) 02:35, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Please check

"The North American video game crash had two long-lasting results. The first result was that dominance in the home console market shifted from the United States to Japan. When the video game market recovered by 1985, Nintendo's NES was by far the dominant console, leaving only a fraction of the market to a resurgent Atari battling Sega's Master System for the number-two spot soon after. By 1989, home video game sales in the United States had reached $5 billion, surpassing the 1982 peak of $3 billion during the previous generation. A large majority of the market was controlled by Nintendo, whose NES had sold over 30 million units in the United States by 1989,"

All of this is not neutral. It's fairly inaccurate as well since the NES was not mentioned in many newspaper articles until 1987, which was in my last edit, and the sales and dates. I think a lot of the article is trying hard to idolize the NES. It's not just this piece either. Is there some kind of administrator who can control those who are putting bias in articles? 108.28.233.221 (talk) 18:24, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

User Sergecross73 please come and see this page. I believe I called you the correct way. 108.28.233.221 (talk) 18:55, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Bias in the article, requesting assistance.

It seems that users will not accept concrete newspaper scanned evidence due to a push for idolizing the NES. I am afraid that a administrator will have to deal with this issue soon. You can see more of this in my above post, which shows that that there are many places in the article pushing for a lop-sided view with nothing to support it 108.28.233.221 (talk) 18:38, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

What exactly is the problem. I'm pretty well-versed in video games, and the NES is generally perceived as the system that pulled the industry out of its crash. Those other systems may have been around, but they didn't really impact the industry on a whole, did they? It seems like the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive is the console is attributed as Sega's real success, for example, not the Sega Master System. Sergecross73 msg me 18:58, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

I made an account. Sergecross73 The NES was historically not considered this popular "thing" until this time period as seen through these sources.

• http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2002&dat=19881127&id=QLEvAAAAIBAJ&sjid=29oFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3199,5562816
• http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2002&dat=19881127&id=QLEvAAAAIBAJ&sjid=29oFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3199,5562816

The NES was only part of the video game comeback before. As shown with the edits I made on the front page, there is not one instance of a single console being picked out for the credit of pulling the industry out the of crash.

• http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1368&dat=19871203&id=aohQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=oxIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6838,344246
• http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1356&dat=19880101&id=9cJPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=cwYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2779,397970
• http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1876&dat=19871108&id=PD0sAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Lc4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=5002,2788780
• http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19870228&id=ChNPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4AIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7040,7958400
• http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19871216&id=A4wyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6-YFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5400,4156618

See the sources? The issue here is that the current edit says that the industry was revitalized by the widespread success of the NES in 1985. But what happened was the industry was already out of its death spiral before the NES started to be in every newspaper. You can see this fact in the indisputable newspaper scans of that time period above. The NES later became the dominate consoles no doubt, but anything else is revisionist history. Most people who argue the other side use articles dated 1988-1991 and those are referring to the market value of the industry, not that the NES pulled the industry out the crash. It's only later that it got twisted into the NES somehow alone, pulled the industry out of the crash. Fact is, this never happened, and most video game history books before 2002 don't have such a thing in them.

Another issue is that 1985 is thrown everywhere. The NES was test launched in 1985 and was barely mentioned in media. The NES did not get any attention until 1987 as you can see with your own eyes. Heck, the 2600 sold a million in 1985 yet no one is saying that console pulled the industry out the crash. Look at my post above and see the blunt attempt to idolize the NES over the Master System and Atari console.

Sergecross73 with these facts I think the conclusion is simple: All the systems mentioned in the sources above should be credited for pulling the industry out of the crash, as they did. Then make a separate area (or page because I am wondering if it's even relevant to the crash) that shows the NES brought the market value passes its peak later on. The two facts are often lumped together when they are two separate things. Doing it this way will cause less confusion. JusticeFlag (talk) 19:47, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

All of the argument above is WP:OR and cannot be used in wikipedia. We need secondary sources on the topic, not primary. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:55, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

And those sources, they're just a handful that cover a rather large event/occurrence. The problem is, the NES had a massive majority of the marketshare over those other consoles. The Sega Master System and that Atari were hardly considered successful business ventures, let alone products that pulled an entire industry out of crisis. Sergecross73 msg me 20:00, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

For example, literally 2 seconds into a Google search, I found this reliable source: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/07/time-to-feel-old-inside-the-nes-on-its-30th-birthday/ - where it directly attributes the NES for pulling the industry out of the crisis, not these other systems. This is the more generally accepted viewpoint. The fact that the other ones helped is more of a fringe theory. Sergecross73 msg me 20:03, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Yeah. Don't mistake press coverage for market performance (and actually, there was a lot of press coverage of the NES around the June CES in 1986 as well, not just in 1987). The press reported on all three consoles equally in 1986 because they were all essentially new (small test markets for the 7800 in 1984 and the NES in 1985 notwithstanding), but once the results were in and it was clear that Nintendo had seized 70% of the market, press coverage was overwhelmingly about Nintendo's success. The articles you used in your change are merely reporting what consoles are currently available and are therefore not trying to give credit to any specific system for reviving the industry. As pointed out above, these newspaper reports are primary sources that are useful for basic facts (like the systems available and their costs), but not for interpretation or analysis (like trying to claim that because several articles mention every console this automatically means they were all equally responsible for reviving the industry). The secondary literature pretty universally credits Nintendo with bringing back the market. That does not mean these sources are automatically right, but it does mean you need to provide appropriate reliable sources demonstrating your view in order to change the article. Newspaper accounts that happen to mention all three systems do not accomplish that. Indrian (talk) 20:13, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Sergecross73, Indrian , Alright I see what you are saying, although Indrian my dates were 1987, I understand I would need a more reliable source, ok that's good. But there's still the bias lop-sidedness.

For example: "The sales of home video games had dropped considerably during this period, from $3 billion in 1982 to as low as $100 million in 1985, leading to bankruptcy for many game companies at the time. Following the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985, the industry began recovering, with annual sales exceeding $2.3 billion by 1988, with 70% of the market dominated by Nintendo.[24] In 1986, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi noted that "Atari collapsed because they gave too much freedom to third-party developers and the market was swamped with rubbish games." In response, Nintendo limited the number of titles that third-party developers could release for their system each year, and promoted its "Seal of Quality", which it allowed to be used on games and peripherals by publishers that met Nintendo's quality standards.[25]"

In 1985 Nintendo was not even a thing. The article contributes the test launch of the NES as the only time the industry recovered, which is not true. Another example:

". The first result was that dominance in the home console market shifted from the United States to Japan. When the video game market recovered by 1985, Nintendo's NES was by far the dominant console, leaving only a fraction of the market to a resurgent Atari battling Sega's Master System for the number-two spot soon after. By 1989, home video game sales in the United States had reached $5 billion, surpassing the 1982 peak of $3 billion during the previous generation. A large majority of the market was controlled by Nintendo, whose NES had sold over 30 million units in the United States by 1989, exceeding the sales of other consoles and personal computers by a considerable margin.[26] Other Japanese companies also rivalled Nintendo's success in the United States, with Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis in 1989, and then the Sony PlayStation in 1995. "

None of this is relevant, and the video game market was not "recovered" by Nintendo NES in 1985. 1985 is factually incorrect and is thrown in too many places within the article. The sales info focusing on the NES also has nothing to do with the articles theme, and the NES is used alone as a "shift" to japan, yet that statement is severely vague. In what way? The numbers are wrong as well, in 1989 the NES did not sell 30 million units, they sold 11-12 in 1988, how did they jump to 30? The only explanation is WW sales, but that is not what the article is about. Rivaled is also spelled wrong. This is an example of the lop-sided info I am talking about that should be fixed.

I'll see if I can find better information to replace the other areas with. JusticeFlag (talk) 20:51, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

• The first quote above is correct. The article does not claim the market revived in 1985, it claims that the market revived after the release of the NES in 1985. There is a difference. The second paragraph you posted has some problems, which I have fixed. Indrian (talk) 21:08, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm fine with correcting any errors in figures or years, if they are proven correct/incorrect by reliable sources. By all means, go for it. I'm merely against the sentiment that there's some sort of bias here, I don't believe there is. Sergecross73 msg me 22:15, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

A discussion about this article.

Hello there, I am AustralianPope, a new member of the wikipedia community and a man who likes to keep things fair and neutral in all discussions, and I will show the same on this website as well.

This page deals with a controversial time in electronic gaming history, and accuracy is indeed hard to accomplish due to lack of 100% concrete info since information from that time period is hard to come by, or requires great patience. Some information is not even available in countries like the U.S. but can be found going through another countries search engine, so it is a pain. It does not mean we can't do something though.

This page is very unorganized and filled with inaccuracies and lacks information about the topic. The Video Game Crash is basically explained in 5 sentences when you look at the article. Judging from the history of the article, not much, if anything, has actually changed. I think we should work on removing the irrelevant statements, leave in what's related to the topic and expand the article to be bigger. Bigger is better as they always say. I think we can do this with the basic info everyone should be able to find. I know the talk page here isn't used much here looking at the history and dates, but, we should still be able to patiently go over the article and provide a more detailed textbook/guide like view of this subject.

Right now to be honest with you, this is pretty bad. People also most likely see this and accept it the way it is because as you may or may not know, wikipedia is popular site to view (joining is a different story) worldwide. There is a whole section that has nothing to support anything that is written there, it takes up 25% of the page. We also have to use common sense in a few areas without information. We have a lot to go over from top to bottom. AustralianPope (talk) 00:44, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, feel free to post particular ideas here, and people can make the changes for you if there's consensus to include it. Right now, the article doesn't allow for new editors to edit it, because we've got a particularly troublesome user who keeps on making a lot of new accounts to make some terrible edits to a number of articles like this. Sergecross73 msg me 01:07, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Really? I figured that nobody was really looking at this page much seeing the few posts on this talk page. This will make it easier since there are others to talk with then. With that being said, I'll post a few things later. I figure a good approach would be to first expand the article, get rid of unwanted sections and add a few more relating to the topic with at least, for now, having a minimum of 2 paragraphs of reliable information within them. Then we can discuss and debate about the information that may have bad references since it seems removing it outright is not allowed without another party, if I read the rules correctly. I think this is the most flexible approach. Add first, ask questions later. AustralianPope (talk) 02:01, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I hate to be skeptical here, but this sure seems like another sock-puppet.--Asher196 (talk) 16:03, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

New Topic: Let's get started.

Let's start expanding this page and making it bigger first before we dive into the information already in the article. We want people, or at least I want people, to see this important article and get a ton from it. So our first step is to expand. But before we do that, we must cut out the weeds from the garden. I'll go over the sections that we should talk about by their names. I'll list by priority.

Effects on world gaming markets

I believe this section will only become a problem. It serves no purpose and most of its content is not even supported. With that being said, it also has nothing to do with the topic. We should remove this section, and probably expand the other sections of the article. Perhaps add a pre-history section since the crash was seen before it actually happened according to a lot of gaming books and some magazines available online. This seems to be here only to make the article look bigger, but tells me nothing. The exact opposite we will be doing.

Prevention

This little piece in here does not give me what was used to prevent this from happening again. Honestly, half the stuff on here happened again anyway. I think the measures taken should be a different section, and I also believe that it should span more than just the generation after the crash. For example, I believe the invention of the ESRB is one of the more important paths taken to prevent the crash from happening again. But the details are not important, yet.

For now, we should axe this section. The first part of it is not neutral and the rest of it is just yammering. It doesn't, as I said before for the effects section, tell me anything about the topic. We can easily expand this section.

Immediate Effects

This should also be axed. We should just focus on the general effects from the crash. Half of what's in this section does not even make sense since half of what is mentioned happened at a much later date then what would be considered "immediate" and such. I think we should fuse the two sections together and change a lot of what's in them. But for now, we should just focus on making a new "effects" section and working to expand it.

That's about all I see. The rest seem to be fine although the Flooded Console section is a bit questionable but I do believe I saw a source for that section somewhere so I'll look for it. The rest of the sections just need to be fused some with others, discussed, or have a few sentences removed.

So our to do list is to:

1.Axe the Immediate effects, prevention, and console market sections.

2.Make one effects section that is not separated.

3.Foreshadowing section?

I think that's a good start. AustralianPope (talk) 02:28, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Editing?

I can't edit this article for some reason, and there are a few things I want to add. Including a lot of predictions and trends in 1981 and 82 that may be of interest. The edit button seems to have been glitched out. MontyOliver (talk) 21:28, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

No, it's on purpose. It's because a very disruptive editor keeps on breaking policy and adding bad info to the article. Then they get blocked, and make a new account and try again. I wouldn't expect it to change any time soon, it appears this user is rather persistent and keeps on "ruining it for everyone else" (and himself I guess). Anyways, feel free to suggest ideas here, and they can be added by long term editors if deemed appropriate. Sergecross73 msg me 22:21, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Re

This statement needs to be removed:

"which was soft launched in New York City in late 1985 and had become extremely popular in North America by 1987."

All consoles were popular in 1987. (well at least the big 3 in NA) with everyone experiencing high sales. Nintendo started becoming a popular subject in the press in 1988, a year later, which is the same year that Nintendo's competition had faded off. With Tonka cancelling their deals in many states to distribute the Master System due to lack of sales, and the 7800 selling a good 3 million at a good pace, but hitting a saturation point, and was never able to pass that 3 million number until the end of its life. Assuming the sales figures that were provided by gamasutra are correct.

This in turn, made it so the NES (mostly) itself, led the industry to be worth more than the 3.2 million that Atari had peaked with before.

So this is what should be said in the lead:

"The video-game industry was recovered a few years later, mostly due to the nationwide success of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)in 1988"

The 1988 fact should be added because it's a fact. It's when the industry grew bigger than the last peak, as well as the year that many outlets stated that the industry was recovered. Along with the fall of the Sega/Tonka deal, and the sudden crash of whatever temporary competition the 7800 was giving. With many giving complete (or almost complete) credit to the NES. The first sentence about 1985 and 1987 are irrelevant. When the console launched does not matter, and 1987 is factually wrong. It was 1988 when the industry actually recovered TO and PAST the previous height. I also changed widespread success to nationwide because the NES despite being successful in the U.S., was not actually as successful in Canada, which is included with the term "North America" so widespread is folly. Not that Canada was needed anyway, lol.

If I need to provide articles let me know. I'll probably check back later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.79.111.209 (talk) 15:08, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Wow, a random IP stopped by to say the same sort of thing that has been said for months by someone who has been blocked for sockpuppetry about 30 times over. That's not suspicious at all! Sergecross73 msg me 16:30, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

You may need to go see an eye doctor if you think any other section in this page addresses the same issue I do. Now if a person who actually knows about games would come buy and look at my suggestion, you will see that this is a simple and necessary change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.79.111.209 (talk) 17:08, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, certainly none of the last 15 subsections of this talk page discuss someone quibbling over the NES getting too much credit, or the years being wrong, or rewriting the lead. And its just coincidence that you, a brand new person to Wikipedia, just happened to be reading up on BASC, right? Because that's the first place new editors who have never been blocked before read over? Sergecross73 msg me 17:40, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Yet not one part of my post talks about credit, and you are complaining about, on a everyone can edit site, to suggest parts of the article should be edited? OH NOez! And then you pull something out your backside that has nothing to do with this thread. Totally suspicious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hmm, odd, you seem to be a conversation with me about this article. Uh oh are you going to arrest yourself? See, didn't put much though into this did you random person.

Not sure where you got the bad attitude from, but since you clearly know nothing about the article or what I am saying, I would kindly ask you go off somewhere else while someone who does looks at my suggestion. I am not sure why you are randomly trying to start fights, and I don't want any part of it. Now, if you would like to help out that would be much appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.79.111.209 (talk) 17:46, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

C'mon, Jak, who do you think you're fooling? Things like forgetting to sign in/out of your many accounts, editing the BASC page, and trying way too hard to pretend Serge is just a "random person" make it seem like you enjoy being exposed.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 17:58, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I have now joined so people can use my talk page. SuperGangsterRapper95868686 (talk) 18:19, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• I really should not encourage the sock puppetry here, but lets go over the numbers again for the fun of it. The NES was popular in 1987, selling 3 million units. It was also much more popular than any other videogame system, capturing an estimated 70% of the market by dollar value. The press covered Nintendo's 1987 success extensively. The other companies did not experience high sales: Atari only sold 1,000,000 of all systems for the year, which is not terrible, but that is combined sales of three different products (2600, 7800, and XEGS), while Sega needed until the middle of 1988 to reach 500,000 in sales. This has already been covered on this talk page over and over again, but here it is again anyway. Finally, the Toronto Star reported on the success experienced by video games generally and the NES specifically in the late 1980s on multiple occasions, so your claim that the system was not successful in Canada is just strange. Indrian (talk) 18:32, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Removal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This statement needs to be removed:

"which was soft launched in New York City in late 1985 and had become extremely popular in North America by 1987."

All consoles were popular in 1987. (well at least the big 3 in NA) with everyone experiencing high sales. Nintendo started becoming a popular subject in the press in 1988, a year later, which is the same year that Nintendo's competition had faded off. With Tonka cancelling their deals in many states to distribute the Master System due to lack of sales, and the 7800 selling a good 3 million at a good pace, but hitting a saturation point, and was never able to pass that 3 million number until the end of its life. Assuming the sales figures that were provided by gamasutra are correct.

This in turn, made it so the NES (mostly) itself, led the industry to be worth more than the 3.2 million that Atari had peaked with before.

So this is what should be said in the lead:

"The video-game industry was recovered a few years later, mostly due to the nationwide success of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)in 1988"

The 1988 fact should be added because it's a fact. It's when the industry grew bigger than the last peak, as well as the year that many outlets stated that the industry was recovered. Along with the fall of the Sega/Tonka deal, and the sudden crash of whatever temporary competition the 7800 was giving. With many giving complete (or almost complete) credit to the NES. The first sentence about 1985 and 1987 are irrelevant. When the console launched does not matter, and 1987 is factually wrong. It was 1988 when the industry actually recovered TO and PAST the previous height. I also changed widespread success to nationwide because the NES despite being successful in the U.S., was not actually as successful in Canada, which is included with the term "North America" so widespread is folly. Not that Canada was needed anyway, lol.

If I need to provide articles let me know. I'll probably check back later. SuperGangsterRapper95868686 (talk) 18:45, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• The NES was popular in 1987, selling 3 million units. It was also much more popular than any other videogame system, capturing an estimated 70% of the market by dollar value. The press covered Nintendo's 1987 success extensively. The other companies did not experience high sales: Atari only sold 1,000,000 of all systems for the year, which is not terrible, but that is combined sales of three different products (2600, 7800, and XEGS), while Sega needed until the middle of 1988 to reach 500,000 in sales. This has already been covered on this talk page over and over again, but here it is again anyway. Finally, the Toronto Star reported on the success experienced by video games generally and the NES specifically in the late 1980s on multiple occasions, so your claim that the system was not successful in Canada is just strange. Indrian (talk) 18:32, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

You have one paper for canada, while most papers did not cover the NES in canada. Also that has nothing to do with Canada having a "crash" and the NES being the reason for it coming out.

Your logic is also heavily flawed. One could say that the NES was popular in 1986 because it sold 1 million. This alone throws all your reasoning in the trash can. The only date that the NES was said to have actually RESTORED the market was 1988. The whole point of the entire sentence we are talking about. Selling 3 million in 1987 is completely irrelevant. You also put out numbers like 1,000,000 across 3 systems without anything to back that up to.

Let's go over this clearly, There were many magazines talking about all of the big 3 in 1987, and according to sales by gamasutra, the 7800 sold something over a million in total, the Nes 4 million total. Those are impressive numbers for the NES, and this also is part of your argument. Problem is SALES ARE IRRELEVANT. You keep looking at the other section in this talk page which does not make any sense.

The fact is, the NES got praise for restoring the industry in 1988, because that is WHEN it happened, and it is the point of this entire sentence: "the video-game industry was recovered a few years later"

I realize I showed up at a bad time, but because of a random suspicion, you basically ignored everything I just said in your reply. It's rather annoying. SuperGangsterRapper95868686 (talk) 18:45, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• No, what's annoying is you turning up and pushing the same bad claims over and over. Reliable sources do not support your position at all, and your logic is so flawed it is basically impossible to follow. I am not going to bother posting newspaper articles for the umpteenth time, but I really do not have to anyway because you will never achieve consensus for your skewed position. Indrian (talk) 18:51, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

You mean those claims you mentioned that were no where in my reply? Also what skewed potion? You seem to be very slow, what part of "was revitalized a few years later" is apparently impossible for you to understand? You are a sad man, what position I am pushing? It's like you are blind but in reality you are ginoring my post because you are wrong, no your wrong, and have no idea what you are talking about.

In an attempt to make your empty head kick some brain cells around, I will do this for you slowly: the video-game industry was recovered a few years later=1988

Ok, I know you got issues, but are you with me so far? You see that right? Notice how none of the stuff you have been saying is in this right? Ok, so let me know if you can handle this ok? I know I have to do this slowly for you since when I post too much info you lose the ability to read and put in your own words. Now what this means, let me do it slowly for you now, is that the actual date that factually, that means this actually happened in real life, stay with me, IS 1988. Because it happened in 1988. It's like your birthday. You were born in 2007, so you factually are 6-7 years old. You got me?

I am actually concerned I have not done it slow enough for you. Because you before, have literally responded about a post, I did not make. How dare I try to give an event the correct date. Did you know that the Independence day happened July 4th? Which is why we put it on the 4th of July? SuperGangsterRapper95868686 (talk) 19:06, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• But I was born in 2013, so how did I revive the video game market back in Roman times? You make my head hurt. Indrian (talk) 19:11, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what's worse, the fact, based on the bit of knowledge you did show, you KNOW that the industry recovered to 3.2 billion in 1988, or the fact you made 3 arguments based on NOTHING I said, and then pretend you did not know this. I honestly have no idea what your problem is. There's even a whole article saying the exact same thing I am, so if the industry recovered value in 1988, then uh, the market revived in 1988. I guess whatevers been going on here has made all of you stupid but i'll come back to this with the SAME exact references that are in the other page and I guess then you'll kill yourself or something. Asshole. I need a break from you people. SuperGangsterRapper95868686 (talk) 19:15, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Competition out of business

I noticed that one of the main effects of the crash that is mentioned, is that many developers went under or were struggling to survive.

But there is no section dedicated to that. What companies went under? I only see 3 companies mentioned without anything more to go on. So could somebody put these companies in?

Before I forget Coleco did not withdraw from the industry when the crash happened just wanted to point that out.

We should also put in information that suggests that people were still buying consoles because a lot of readers such as myself wrongly consider that video games ceased to exist during the crash.

Yet on sites such as Sega-16, Forbes, Atariage, a few google books, others have proven, consoles were not actually dead.

I thought I would mention this so that nobody is confused. I would give you some links to help but I have never used wikipedia before today so i'll leave it to the professionals. This became a very interesting discussion over at the Gamefaqs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.66.84.141 (talk) 18:31, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

ET/2600 Dump Found

I'm not sure if this goes into this article, but it probably goes somewhere related to this one: they found the great Atari dump.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/04/26/the-dig-uncovering-the-atari-et-games-buried-in-new-mexico-desert http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2614109/Atari-2600-E-T-worst-game-discovered-New-Mexico-landfill-dig.html http://www.cnet.com/news/found-ataris-e-t-games-dug-up-from-new-mexico-landfill/

A Google search brings up more sources if you want them. Lucky9Two (talk) 04:33, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Check out Atari video game burial. Cheers. —Tourchiest ^talk_edits 04:43, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Early 1980s recession had no effect?

If I recall correctly, there was a nasty Early 1980s recession before the 1983 video game collapse yet it is not mentioned. So one can gather from the lack of a mention that it was not much of a contributor to the 1983 video game collapse? Septagram (talk) 07:13, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

• As near as I can tell, probably not. I have never seen a newspaper article from the time that placed the blame on the recession. Also, the heart of the recession was in 1981-2 when the video game market was experiencing extraordinary growth. By 1984, the US economy was in recovery and the video game industry was well on its way to bottoming out, which it finally did in 1985. In general, the video game industry has proven itself to be incredibly resilient to economic recessions. Even in the most recent one, the industry continued to experience growth in the first two years of the recession before the economy finally caught up to it and caused a decline. Indrian (talk) 15:06, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

"many had large third-party libraries"

Each of these consoles had its own library of games, and many had large third-party libraries.

What does this mean? What's a "third-party library"? Third-party to what? --Special:Contributions/Beefyt (talk) 06:35, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Third party, as in, made by companies that were not the hardware maker. For example, on a Nintendo made console, a game made by Electronic Arts, Activision, or Ubisoft would be considered "third party games". In this instance, the word library is being used in the same way that "collection" would be used. So, putting it all together, it's saying that a console had a large collection of games made by other companies. This is generally seen as a good thing, it usually means the console was selling well to consumers. Sergecross73 msg me 10:41, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying! I figured that's what it meant, but it's ambiguous; confuses the console with the maker of the console. --beefyt (talk) 23:41, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, the old wording made sense to people familiar with the industry, but not really for general audiences, which is what Wikipedia strives to do. So, your rewording is much better. Thanks! Sergecross73 msg me 00:44, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

I suggest we remove that however since half the consoles mentioned had small libraries f often less than 60 games. 173.79.138.150 (talk) 17:15, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Title change.

Would it be possible to change the title to NA "Console" video game crash. That s the only subject that this article covers. Computers were fine, Arcades has a different crash that was nowhere near the scope and also picked back up before Consoles did, So it should be emphasized that this is a console crash only. Many people act like the entire industry was dead, including in other countries, where this has no effect, because people take what they see on Wikipedia and put their own pieces together. 173.79.138.150 (talk) 17:19, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that's a good idea. Articles on Wikipedia are named according to WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CONCISE, and I believe your suggestion would work towards both of those policies... Sergecross73 msg me 17:25, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree, We would need solid evidence that this is actually called a console crash before we consider changing the title.--69.157.253.160 (talk) 02:48, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I just want to chime in and say that I find the title misleading as well. The arcade market suffered a crash, and the home console market suffered a crash in the United States, but the home computer market (which was primarily driven by video games) didn't suffer a crash but rather a boom at the time. Further, the title says "North" American — which would include Canada — and yet historian Steven L. Kent says, "The American video game market may have crashed in 1983, but the international market continued almost unimpeded. Atari marched on in Europe and Japan. Even the Canadian market remained fairly active throughout most of 1984. Atari, Mattel, even Vectrex sales continued in foreign markets." (The Ultimate History of Video Games, Chapter 17, p. 278. Emphasis mine.). -- Mecandes (talk) 19:06, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

The title is accurate. In 1983-84, there was no concept of a unified "interactive entertainment industry" encompassing both consoles and home computers. When one spoke of "video games" in those days, one referred to arcade and console games (which were actually two very different markets as well, but the press and public did not always make the distinction). Therefore, when the press discussed a "video game crash" at the time, they were not factoring in home computer games at all.

Second, North American is accurate because this was an industry crash, not a market crash. Demand for video games actually held throughout 1983 in the United States and cartridge sales increased (albeit at sometimes heavily discounted prices) over 1982. The market therefore did not collapse. What did collapse was the industry, i.e. those North American companies like Atari, Mattel, Coleco, Activision, and Imagic that were supplying product to the marketplace. All of these companies either disappeared or were chased out of the business in a greatly weakened state. Once the industry was gone, the market bottomed out in 1985 because no new product was being introduced, but the market demand never really went away, which is why Nintendo, and to a far lesser extent Atari and Sega, experienced success in 1986. The state of the Canadian market during this period has no bearing on whether or not the industry crashed in North America. Indrian (talk) 18:27, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Tons of Claims with no back-up

A lot of statements and "facts' in this article are made boldly, yet there's nothing to actually back up some of them. It also doesn't help that there's no elaboration so people who read the article no the difference between market and industry crash, and a few users who know extra facts (above this section Indrian states sales of software increased during the crash) do not actually post these findings and reference them. So basically this article is one huge mess here are some of the things along with the above I noticed:

1. The top area says the main cause of the Crash was saturation, this is never explained at all and also is a debatable figure.

2. Flooded console market doesn't actually exist as it is said. While you can find an article or two about some people thinking a "third" console adding the Coleco may start to make things a bit harder for sustainability, (which was dwarfed by Colecos fast high sales) there wasn't any other flooded console, and these consoles aren't even mentioned during the class, failed in NA, or did not release in NA unless they were limited. The Astrocade was mail-order, Channel F was pretty much dead, Arcadia didn't even really exist, we have nothing to cite these for even being reasons people just assume this and throw them in their as if they are facts yet there's nothing showing for this at all. Even back in those days.

3. Focusing on E.T. and a 2600 version of PAc-Man (that sold very well) is also something added to the "primary" reasons of the crash. In fact, most of the effects of these games weren't considered and it's mostly retrospective. These were not core causes of the crash and we have nothing but "misinformed public opinion for the last few years" to back that up."

4. "By June 1983, the market for the more expensive games had shrunk dramatically and was replaced by a new market of rushed-to-market, low-budget games." No this didn't happen, games with polish also had to shrink the prices. This is trying really hard without citation to imply that the majority of games in the bargin bins were all quaker oats type games, which numbers are grossly hyperbole.

5. "A massive industry shakeout resulted. Magnavox and Coleco abandoned the video game business entirely. Imagic withdrew its IPO the day before its stock was to go public; the company later collapsed. The largest third-party developer, Activision, survived in part because they also developed games for home computers to offset their console losses. Most of the smaller software development houses supporting the Atari 2600 closed." This is all wrong, Coleco didn't die during the crash, they were still going, Magnavox as well, there's no source for Imagic, which would be requried for such a statement. We also have nothing on Activision for a statement that bold.

6. "Toy retailers, which controlled consumer access to games, had concluded that video games were a fad. That fad, they assumed, had ended, , and the shelf space would be reassigned to different products; as a result, many retailers ignored video games for several years" So much so that they still carried game consoles? I mean sure it reduced but it wasn't anywhere near this implied hyperbole. Especially with Atari, during the lowest "point" of the crash selling one million consoles, where did those come from? Where were the Colecovisions still being sold? I mean we have no citation for this in the from it's in and then proceed to add reference to an irrelevant Nintendo article about R.O.B., which while the point of the article is related, doesn't back up the rest of some of this "complete no carry" that's been implied for years.

7. "The sales of home video games had dropped considerably during this period, from $3 billion in 1982 to as low as $100 million in 1985" While I have heard of this number as well, I am having issues fininding mutiple reliable sources on this, and am wondering if anybody else has.

8. "In response, Nintendo limited the number of titles that third-party developers could release for their system each year, and promoted its "Seal of Quality", which it allowed to be used on games and peripherals by publishers that met Nintendo's quality standards." The reference for this has nothing to do with this statement and only provided a source for the preceding Hiroshi quote. Also the Nintendo seal of quality yhad nothing to do with quality standards, it just meant the cart was licensed to work on the NES.

9. "The end of the crash allowed Commodore to raise the price of the C64 for the first time upon the June 1986 introduction of the Commodore 64c—a Commodore 64 redesigned for lower cost of manufacture, which Compute! cited as the end of the home-computer price war,[38][39] one of the primary causes of the crash.[40]" The computer "price war" had NOTHING to do with being a serious part of the video game "console" crash.

10. "Other Japanese companies also rivaled Nintendo's success in the United States, with Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis in 1989 and NEC's PC Engine released the same year." This is extra text that has nothing to do with the paragraph it's in.

11. "A second, highly visible result of the crash was the institution of measures to control third-party development of software." this and the rest of the paragraph are useless due to the fact it's false, Coleco (and Mattel) had these, the writer of the paragraph knows this and switched to the 2600 not having it as a reason for his statement, which is not how it works. Even if the 2600 was the more popular console.

There's more, but there are so many things in this article that speak as if they are well known facts but they are either misinformation, lies, speculation, or have nothing providing reliable back-up to support what is being said. We even have had (i've been looking through multiple 2nd gen articles for awhile) people who know things that should be added that are important and have yet to add anything to this article. I believe one evenw rote a book or something and not a piece of that info is in this article.

This article has always been a mess, and it has been shrunken quite a bit since a couple years ago, but there's still key points to this article that are left alone despitenothing supporting these things to be in the article.. 96.255.227.206 (talk) 16:14, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

• Hey Jakandsig, its been awhile. I almost miss our discussions even if they were part of the largest single sockpuppet attack I have ever seen on Wikipedia. All snarkiness aside though, you are right: this article is a mess, and most of the points you have brought up are pretty valid. I would certainly not be adverse to you making a few of these changes as long as you back them up with proper sourcing. You are probably correct that someone like Marty or myself could make most of these changes if we put in the effort, but it would be A LOT of effort, and my attentions are currently focused elsewhere. I am happy to share my thoughts on all your points, however.

1. So any event as convoluted as the crash is going to have multiple causes with various degrees of influence, but saturation really does seem to be the leading problem. Analysts at the time concluded that there was probably enough product to satisfy 200 percent of market demand, so that created some pretty bad ripple effects when retailers could not sell through product, which meant publishers did not get paid and software had to go into the bargain bin. This caused the price of software to collapse, which meant that publishers could not recoup the cost of creating and marketing new games. Some like to point to the atrocious quality of certain games, but really every single game on the market could have been one of the most brilliant video games ever made and you still would not be able to sell all of them if you exceeded your market demand by 100%.

2. Yeah, the flooded console market thing is complete BS. As you rightly point out, consoles like the Channel F and Astrocade barely existed and could certainly not be found at retail. Everyone knew Atari was the market leader, trailed by Mattel, and that Colecovision was the hot new product gaining ground fast. No one was paying attention to the lesser products, and the success or failure of those products had no bearing on whether the publisher ecosystem could survive because publishers created little or no product for those consoles. This really should go.

3. The ET thing is blown entirely out of proportion, though it was certainly a very bad thing for Atari. Pac-Man, as you state, was a commercial success and most likely had little to do with the crash. It probably was overproduced, but not to the degree articulated in most sources, which parrot Kent. Kent based his info on a Kassar quote that Atari shipped 12 million cartridges and contemporary newspaper accounts that Atari sold 7 million cartridges. Kent was interviewing Kassar over twenty years after the fact, and my guess is he had the production numbers wrong. Also, Atari was planning to start bundling Pac Man with the VCS, so some of that production was not for stand alone retail product.

4. Yeah, that statement completely misconstrues the situation. People would have loved to keep purchasing new high quality games, but the $35 price point could not be maintained in the face of overwhelming discount inventory. It was not just bad games going for under $5.00, plenty of good games were going at that price too. It would take two years to clear out the retail channel, which is why Nintendo had such success again in 1986. The public did not tire of games; retailers just did not want to stock them anymore.

5. You are off base here. The article does not say that Coleco and Magnavox went away, just that they got out of the market. Magnavox cancelled its next system, while Coleco sold vastly reduced quantities until finally pulling the plug for good in early 1985. Imagic did cancel its IPO because it was scheduled for just a couple of days after the Atari announced that tanked video game stocks in December 1982, and it failed to transition to home computer software effectively, thus going out of business. Activision did only survive by moving to computer games, and it still lost money for sixteen consecutive quarters due to the wounds brought on by the crash. More sourcing is always good, but the basic facts here are correct.

6. Okay, absolutes are generally always a bad idea, but the point of the article that retailers did not want to stock video games anymore is true. Nintendo had to fight hard to get its first distribution deals, which is why the company began with a small test market for the NES. Retailers in 1984 and 1985 were largely liquidating backstock at highly discounted prices. They were not interested in anything new.

7. These numbers are frequently cited in newspaper articles in the mid to late 1980s. They are, of course, just estimates by analysts, but they get the point across pretty well about the complete collapse of the market.

8. Yes and no. The Nintendo Seal of Quality was a gimmick in that Nintendo accepted plenty of games of dubious quality. However, Nintendo did subject any game it licensed to rigorous testing, so they were usually bug free even if the game play was dreck. It was an important symbol to lure skittish retailers and consumers back to video games even if it did not really represent anything practically speaking.

9. Agree totally. The video game and home computer markets were on completely different cycles. The home computer market did crash due to Tramiel's price war, but this was completely independent of the video game industry crash.

10. Once again I agree. Sega and NEC did not even really do that well in the US in this time period. Implying that they "rivalled" Nintendo's success is flat out wrong.

11. Again, yes and no. Lockout chips were not new, but Nintendo was the first company to create a complete and rigorous system of quality control that included manufacturing of all cartridges and rigorous testing of all released games. Instituting third-party controls means more than just a lock-out chip.

And that's that. Feel free to make a few changes if you can back them with sources, but try to avoid the edit warring you are becoming known for. It is not constructive and will only get you banned again. Indrian (talk) 17:52, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 July 2015

Regarding the second to last sentence in the Flooded Console Market section, please replace the sentence with the following sentence which adds clarification and a reference.

A proposed Atari 7800 was 2600-compatible, but its 1984 launch was shelved when Warner Communications split up Atari.

Jonpollnow (talk) 21:23, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Not done: The page's protection level and/or your user rights have changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. Cannolis (talk) 02:22, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Video Game crash of 1984

Why does is always {wrong) say 'crash of 1983', when in fact the crash happened in 1984, which can be read in Electronic Games magazine March 1984. Here's some links: http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo12/Alison123456789/video%20game%20crash%20of%2084/cead2479-10fc-4193-9d42-d30ccacf266f_zps8fb13b80.jpg http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo12/Alison123456789/video%20game%20crash%20of%2084/EGmarch1984_zpsbc61ac76.jpg

Here's some more links, Garry Kitchen (famous Activision programmer, talks about the 1984 crash: http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo12/Alison123456789/video%20game%20crash%20of%2084/videogamecrashof1984GarryKitchen_zps7baa2403.jpg

Here's Alan Miller (another famous Activision programmer) talking about the 1984 crash: http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo12/Alison123456789/video%20game%20crash%20of%2084/videogamecrashof1984AlanMiller_zpsbc345682.jpg

Here's another link talking about the 1984 crash: http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo12/Alison123456789/video%20game%20crash%20of%2084/videogamecrashof1984DigitalPress_zpsbb0e1b6d.jpg

I think this should be put right.

Does this represent the majority of reliable sources covering the crash since several other reliable sources say 1983.

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2011/09/21/ten-facts-about-the-great-video-game-crash-of-83 http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/experienced-points/10503-The-Game-Crash-of-2013 http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-10-03-gaming-risks-a-repeat-of-1983-crash-report

This clearly shows that the crash happening in 84 is not an established fact.--69.157.253.160 (talk) 22:35, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

The crash as a whole took place over multiple years, as is described that way in the article. I'm assuming it's referred to as the crash of '83 because that's when it began, which I don't think any sources really dispute. Whether or not that's the best title is potentially worth discussing. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 03:42, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I find it rather hilarious too that references used in the line all say 1984, but the comment remains 1983. It's like ignore the source saying 1984, and believe the comment saying 1983. Strange one, isn't it? Oh, IGN is an unreliable source to use too, because they quoted Wikipedia as their source for the crash of 1983.2602:304:CFD3:2EE0:29A6:6444:16CF:6121 (talk) 08:20, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Everything I'm reading on the page suggest it should be The Crash of 82. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.11.214.10 (talk) 00:50, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Next steps for cleanup

This article has been tagged as a hot mess for half a decade now. What does it need to go forward? WP:TNT? Large sections of the article are unsourced and the narrative is really disjointed. czar 16:06, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

@Indrian and PresN, would this be in your wheelhouse? czar 17:01, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm hesitantly interested, though I don't know much about the time period - then again, I knew nothing about the 50s/60s in video gaming before I started that project, so it's not unreasonable, and I am on the market for another big project. I'd definitely TNT the article if I did it, though I honestly do that with most articles I write so I can know/trust what it and the sources say. --PresN 01:33, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

• Okay, so for next steps how about nuking everything but the lede. Everything would have to be rewritten anyway to solve the structural issues. Objections? czar 21:52, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Fairchild II missing link

Isn't the Faichild II this article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheSheepGuy (talk • contribs) 10:38, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Page move

I did not nominate this for RM, I simply made the first comment in this discussion. I am opposed to moving it to North American video game crash of 1983. -- ferret (talk) 20:15, 27 July 2017 (UTC) Bringing this to the article from WT:VG. I see no issue myself with the page move. Agree with Cuchullain that it meets WP:COMMONNAME. -- ferret (talk) 18:40, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks Ferret. To repeat what I said there, I saw no move discussion in the archives when I made the move, and it seemed pretty apparent that just "Video game crash of 1983" is the WP:COMMONNAME. It received several times the hits on Google Books ([1] vs. [2]), Google News ([3] vs. [4]) and Google Scholar ([5] vs. [6]). It is true that the crash mainly affected North America, that doesn't have much bearing on the common name. World War I mainly affected Europe, but it's still called "World War I".--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:56, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

As this has been made into an RM, I guess I'll formally oppose the move to North American video game crash of 1983 per WP:COMMONNAME (that is, I think it should stay at Video game crash of 1983). Per my previous comment, the latter title is several times more common on Google Books, News, and Scholar searches. It's also more WP:CONCISE.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:44, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

• So, I don't have strong feelings either way really, but I feel I should point out the article was moved to " North American video game crash of 1983" after a brief discussion (in which I took no part) back in 2007 about how the title was misleading due to the phenomenon being isolated to North America rather than the entire world. WP:COMMONNAME specifically asserts that Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources," so this issue is not as clear cut as you would have us believe by merely invoking that policy. I would also note that there is not really a common name here as the event is called many different things in many different sources. Sometimes it is just the "Video Game Crash" without any year, sometimes its the "Great Video Game Crash" sometimes its simply "The Crash." Sometimes "of 1983" is added to these variations and some sources do refer to the "North American" crash. In these instances with many competing ways of describing the event, COMMONNAME prefers editors to come to a consensus on the best name under the circumstances rather than to just use the one that a certain editor feels is the most common. That is what (sort of) happened back in 2007, which made this change today stand out to me. We can call it what we like quite frankly so long as we do not choose something wildly fanciful, but lets not pretend COMMONNAME actually provides a pat solution. Indrian (talk) 18:58, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Unless there are more video game crashes from 1983 that I'm not aware of, I'm not opposed to the move. soetermans. ^{↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK} 19:01, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Actually there was a crash in the ZX Spectrum market that year in the United Kingdom, though it quickly recovered soon after. There was also the coin-operated games market crash that began in 1982 and continued into 1983 which was a separate event to the home market crash this article primarily refers to but greatly effected video games in that area. I doubt any of that would change your mind and its really not really meant to, but I fugure you might like to be informed on some of the other turbulent events of the time. Indrian (talk) 19:14, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Like Masem pointed out, it was a global crash. The UK ZX Spectrum market crash are connected, no? soetermans. ^{↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK} 11:24, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Actually, it was not a global crash, which is why this article was renamed to concentrate on North America. Both the Japanese and European markets were generally doing just fine in this period, though neither was as big as the market in the United States. The Spectrum market crash actually happened because the Spectrum blew up unexpectedly big in 1982 and there was nowhere near enough software to meet demand. Companies over compensated in 1983 by producing more software than the market could bear. Imagine was the poster child for this failure: the company had a lot of problems, but what finally killed it was trying to corner the market on tape duplication only to discover that the market failed to materialize in the way they hoped, partly due to over saturation and partly due to an increase in piracy as home tape duplication became easier. Again, I am not trying to change your vote, I am perfectly okay with the name change, but there were several market upheavals that year. Indrian (talk) 14:58, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

• I suppose I should state for the record that I also do not oppose the move to Video Game Crash of 1983; I just felt there should be a consensus established. Some may see that as pedantic, but I just did not want this to become an issue down the line if someone randomly decided it should be changed back. Indrian (talk) 19:19, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
• I'm with the shorter title. I researched this about a year ago and Indrian more or less describes what I saw. Most referred to it as "the great" video game crash or just the "video game crash", which isn't to say that it was the only one ever but that it's clearly the best known economic crash in the games industry. "1983" adds a suitable disambiguation from what could otherwise be interpreted as a software "crash". I think dropping "North American" is sensible and the most recognizable (the name most people will call it), natural (reflecting what it's usually called), precise (unambiguously identified), and concise (not longer than necessary to identify), per the naming criteria (article titles policy) czar 19:49, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
• Comment I see this has been listed as an RM now. However, there's no clear nomination to move it back, and appears to have been (innocently) attributed to me. Even Indrian doesn't seem to support moving it back (Correct me if wrong but that's my reading), just wants to ensure there is a discussion. We can have that, for prosperity's sake, but the RM should probably just be closed unless there's someone who's actually in support of it being moved back. I honestly don't think there was anything wrong with the bold move to begin with, just because it was moved once ten years ago after a very small discussion in which only three total comments were made, and the third one didn't even fully agree with the article title used. -- ferret (talk) 20:14, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
  • I removed the RM. If someone wants it, they need to directly nominate it themselves with a rationale. -- ferret (talk) 21:05, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
• Keep/Move to "Video game crash of 1983"; it's hard to figure what was original or not, but regardless, the current state with the article at "video game crash of 1983" or "1983 video game crash" (more in-line with events coverage on WP) is better, as the influence was not just NA, but global. NA's video game market just was the hardest hit. --MASEM (t) 21:04, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
• Keep the article at "Video game crash of 1983". Why do we need a region attached to the title? Do we have a Japanese or European crash of 1983 article that we need to disambiguate it from? Agreed with all supported points above. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 23:07, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
• Good bold move. I like it.--Asher196 (talk) 16:26, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Originally wasn't it changed because of the misinformation, that was later spread, of this being a global crash? Moving it back to the general term would just cause the same confusion again in my honest opinion. One of the things that "video game crash' had caused in the earlier years of wikipedia, as well as the incorrect generation order, was an influx of outlets reporting on it and causing misinformation of what the crash actually was and what it effected., the false fact that the crash was global, which it wasn't. I really think this was done in haste, especially since the core of the article focuses on NA primarily, and of course what I mentioned above but I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in. 71.178.34.108 (talk)

software piracy

The way I saw it, much of the cause for this crash was the ability to use dual floppy disk drives to copy games - a feature nonexistant on ROM hardware cassettes. This fact had not been noted here at all. Since I'm not a historian or a researcher, I just wanted to offer my two cents about the topic. thanks. Baroch Oren --212.25.69.18 (talk) 09:30, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

The crash for 1983 was primarily in home consoles, not the PC market (which at the time was still too new to even really matter). --MASEM (t) 12:19, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

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