What Ever Happened to the Underdog?

[andymol21]

I was browsing eBay today and ended up looking at Turbo Grafx-16s and it got me wondering. What ever happened to the also ran in each console race. In the 8-bit you had things like the Atari 7800, the 16-bit had the Turbo Grafx-16 and the Neo Geo AES, the 32/64-bit had the Atari Jaguar. Even, to a lesser extent, the Dreamcast was the underdog of the 128-bit console race. That's not even including the Philips CDI, the 3DO, the Apple Pippin!!! All of these consoles were failures, I admit, but it sometimes works (see Playstation 1) so why not have a go?

It just seems with this generation that no one is willing to break the mold, it seems like "The Big Three" have the entire market sewn up from end to end. Where can retro gaming go in the future, when only 3 consoles exist in a generation? I feel like I'm not getting the choice I used to, even if the choice I used to have was an easy one.

[Ack]

A. I thought this was about the cartoon. What a great cartoon.

B. Many of those end up with some extremely hardcore fans. Also, the Jaguar is apparently really good for Homebrew. Got a large community, from what I hear.

[Gamerforlife]

I was browsing eBay today and ended up looking at Turbo Grafx-16s and it got me wondering. What ever happened to the also ran in each console race. In the 8-bit you had things like the Atari 7800, the 16-bit had the Turbo Grafx-16 and the Neo Geo AES, the 32/64-bit had the Atari Jaguar. Even, to a lesser extent, the Dreamcast was the underdog of the 128-bit console race. That's not even including the Philips CDI, the 3DO, the Apple Pippin!!! All of these consoles were failures, I admit, but it sometimes works (see Playstation 1) so why not have a go?

It just seems with this generation that no one is willing to break the mold, it seems like "The Big Three" have the entire market sewn up from end to end. Where can retro gaming go in the future, when only 3 consoles exist in a generation? I feel like I'm not getting the choice I used to, even if the choice I used to have was an easy one.

Hmm, I don't know. Sony looks like the underdog right now and there was a time I never thought I'd be saying that. If Nintendo doesn't start showing a little aggression, they could drop to number 3 at some point.

You have a point though, all three companies are heavyweights that know what success is like. There really isn't a sort of underground, cult status console to flock to right now. I mean all three consoles are constantly in the headlines. It's like if you want to be rebel now you just avoid all major releases and stick to Xbox Live Arcade or Wii virtual console downloads. LOL

Or you just say, "screw next gen" and go buy a Saturn.

[andymol21]

Or you just say, "screw next gen" and go buy a Saturn.

Done.

Yeah I know what you mean with XBLA and the like, thats where the little companies go to get noticed. Still, we need a new Amstrad GX4000 or similar just to shake things up.

Does anyone remember the Phantom? I think that is the way to go with consoles now. If a little company set up a service where users could go online, download small XBLA style games onto a box on top of their TV which also acts as a TV tuner and play them using a simple a game pad/remote then I think it would succeed. Maybe Popcap games could spend some of the massive amounts of money they are making on such a system.

[lordofduct]

There's still underdogs. Today the videogame market is humongous.

First you have your big 3... that is common.

Then you have your computer games: regular disk games, flash games, java games... a ton of different outlets.

Then you have the odd ball consoles. I have a hard time remembering the names as they generally suck, but I think Matel released a new one that uses cards and disks, and a couple other odd ball ones.

Then there is the really big handheld markets coming out of Asia which include the GP2X and the sort.

Don't forget the cellphone market.




I don't think there's a lot of under dogs in the big league (like comparing tg16 to genesis kinda big league) because that area already has 3 big companies. And it is a very expensive place to be now a days. A forth console will be hard to get 3rd party developers onto... especially if its hardware can't keep up with the other guys. The only real reason Wii keeps up with its underpowered magic is it is the same basic architecture of the Gamecube AND it is selling so well!



Also keep in mind, the Dreamcast still gets a game every few months, and the Neo-Geo only stopped getting games a couple years ago. It had one LONG life span to tell you the truth. 90' -> 04', that's 14 years of good ol' gaming! The damn thing still sells for a butt load of money on ebay... 150 to sometimes 300 dollars and more.



Keep in mind these "underdogs" back in the day were also in a less flooded market. The TG16 was released against the genny and NES which was superseded by the SNES... 3 consoles. And it was hardly the underdog in Japan. NEC held one hell of a hold over there, so much so that the SegaCD was actually a marketing ploy against the TG-CD.