Everyone talking about how much more affordable the C64 was, but it launched at a price of (per Wikipedia) $595. The Atari 2600 was, apparently, $125 at that time. It's not hard to figure out why console gaming took off in America given that kind of price difference. From what I can find the C64 was down to $149 and the NES launched at a base of $89.99, so still significantly cheaper. Plus, you had to buy the tape drive at bare minimum to get the truly cheap games, and none of those could hold a candle to the kind of games that were available on the NES. The C64 floppy drive cost as much as the C64 itself, plus the cost of games for it, so no real cost savings there. And as much as I love the C64, and the fond school memories I have of it, the NES had better graphics and much bigger adventures than the C64 did. Just look at cross platform games like Contra and Castlevania, among others, the NES looked better and played more smoothly. Plus, the NES controller was better.
Comments 1
Re: "Poorly Analyzed US-Centric Garbage" - Why Do Americans Keep Ignoring European Gaming History?
Everyone talking about how much more affordable the C64 was, but it launched at a price of (per Wikipedia) $595. The Atari 2600 was, apparently, $125 at that time. It's not hard to figure out why console gaming took off in America given that kind of price difference. From what I can find the C64 was down to $149 and the NES launched at a base of $89.99, so still significantly cheaper. Plus, you had to buy the tape drive at bare minimum to get the truly cheap games, and none of those could hold a candle to the kind of games that were available on the NES. The C64 floppy drive cost as much as the C64 itself, plus the cost of games for it, so no real cost savings there. And as much as I love the C64, and the fond school memories I have of it, the NES had better graphics and much bigger adventures than the C64 did. Just look at cross platform games like Contra and Castlevania, among others, the NES looked better and played more smoothly. Plus, the NES controller was better.