The Video Game Critic

I've just finished reading an article on Japanese gaming, which left me wondering how wonderfully diverse gaming systems were during the 1980's in different regions

Japan: MSX, Famicom, X68000, FM Towns, FM-7 and other Japanese only home computers.

America: Atari, Colecovision, video game crash, TI-99, Apple 2, the NES phenomenon.

Europe: Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, ST, Amiga the Master System.

Just looking at that quick not in depth look at the leading systems of each region is fascinating.

The global market is probably objectively better. Everyone has access to the same systems and games making games more commercially viable, but it sure ain't as interesting.

The regional model was more interesting, both for games and hardware. Cars are still very regional, with American cars very different from European cars for instance, so its not about big investment, globalization, or maturing of the industry. Maybe its been the rise in RAM and storage leading to bigger games that need big audiences. Smaller systems and games are quickly disparaged and marginalized.

Its a lot of fun learning about other systems and their libraries. It also brought people together, not as fanboys, but fans of systems and not games or genres. This generation in particular seems to have far fewer differences in PS4, XB1 and PC, and even mobile games use 1 of 2 global operating systems.

P.S. That American list is missing something that begins with a 'C'.

No, Scotland. Sut already pointed out the Colecovision.

Luigi & Peach wrote:No, Scotland. Sut already pointed out the Colecovision.

D'oh! I walked right into that one....