I don't even know who was saying that since the NES and SNES were HUGE in the UK when they came out. We had the early PC market too and Sega had some presence but to say the NES was not a thing in the UK is a ridiculous statement.
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People need to stop thinking that the UK market represents Europe
- Thread starter Stairouais
- Start date
I don't even know who was saying that since the NES and SNES were HUGE in the UK when they came out. We had the early PC market too and Sega had some presence but to say the NES was not a thing in the UK is a ridiculous statement.
Anecdotally, in the early 90s I knew only one person in my school who played on PC (a 386 I think) and that was only because his Mum worked for IBM. The rest was a split between SNES and Megadrive. Then N64/Saturn and then that little PlayStation thing happened.
Tbh I'd be happy if most people realized:
- Spain is NOT mexico, we are in the EU.
- This is not a dictatorship.
- We were mostly mega drive turf (so we don't have that much of a Nintendo nostalgia).
OT: in Spain specifically we did have a lot of spectrum/commodore/amiga, but I agree with the OP.
- Spain is NOT mexico, we are in the EU.
- This is not a dictatorship.
- We were mostly mega drive turf (so we don't have that much of a Nintendo nostalgia).
OT: in Spain specifically we did have a lot of spectrum/commodore/amiga, but I agree with the OP.
Color me surprised! Very different from my experience during the same period. Only about 5 or so kids per class had a MD or SNES, consoles were rare those days, out of most people's price range so most of us were relegated to playing on the PCs at our dads' offices and such. Playstation was the first console I remember actually being widely popular around here. Plenty of Mega Drives too, don't get me wrong... but the PS1 was on a different level. N64 and Saturn were a rare sight for me growing up.
That's so strange. Perhaps it's a regional thing. I remember kids going crazy over Megadrive and SNES demo pods in Woolworths. Yes I was one of them! Fzero demo blew me away.
Edit: C64, Amiga and Spectrum were also popular amongst adults (my uncles and friends dads) but most kids were won over by the plug and play nature of cartridges. Loading from a double sided cassette was a bitch!
Yeah, I mean that's the whole point (and why I said parents got C64s), same here. My parents bought a C64 for us because they thought computers were going to be a thing and it would be good for us to learn programming (clever chaps). C64 was also cheap because you could easily copy cassettes with hundreds of games, or even record them from the radio. So as this was a time where most people in Europe didn't even have PCs at home, C64 was a good stepping stone. It never really got Lotus or more useful business software, so in the end it got relegated to games, but still. It's safe to say most of Europe by and large was simply not as developed as the US and Japan, where most families already had a PC and could then afford the luxury of a game console. Because games could be easily copied they were also necessarily small, somewhat hobbyist affairs (licensed games like TMNT and some hits like The Last Ninja notwithstanding). I don't think it's very comparable to what NES and SEGA were doing, even if it was more popular. At least when I got an NES I hardly looked back. When there's talk of the videogame crash impacting the US but lone bastion Europe was still going strong, what people fail to say is that there hardly was an industry in Europe to begin with. Videogames was the US. Even the people who stuck to PC mostly played Sierra, Accolade, Atari, Activision and later LucasArts games, or small European hobby games.
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Haha wow, I had no idea there was this much misconception about my little country.
The UK does not represent Europe in the same way that an individual US state does not represent the whole of the US.
The UK does not represent Europe in the same way that an individual US state does not represent the whole of the US.
I think the narrative the OP is hearing is more a result of the UK pushing back against 80s NES nostalgia. At one time the American videogame history was pretty much the only thing you read about on English speaking website - almost treating the gaming crash as a global thing. I've noticed Brits have, over the years, liked to point out the crash was never a thing here and the NES wasn't the super popular monopoly like it was in the States since there was the PC market (far different from saying it was never released here). This has probably fed back to Americans who now want to be seen as well read and are repeating it (with mistakes).
Though, the simpler answer is, you were listening to IGN.
Though, the simpler answer is, you were listening to IGN.
Still remember Ghostbusters 2. Loading took half an hour, and when you died, you had to reload D:
When I first went to US on a training course in 2012 one of the US trainees actually asked me to explain how Europe and UK were different. Then I had to explain the difference between England and UK. Then he asked 'what's Great Britain then?'. He wasn't dumb, he was a well educated government employee. It's just not something he was taught.
It seems OP land the people agreeing with him/her mainly have an issue with people pointing out when switch games don't do well in the UK or that Nintendo isn't as popular in Europe as it is in Japan or the US. Having read the PAL thread religiously for years the conversation is usually someone pointing out one of the above two facts and then 10 people saying "UK doesn't equal Europe"
Oh man reading this thread I just remembered I had a Spectrum lol
It was second hand, but it was glorious. Also Atari was pretty popular too. It's weird to think about the fact that NES, Spectrum, MD, Amiga, Atari... were a thing at the same time. Then PSX happened and everything exploded.
It was second hand, but it was glorious. Also Atari was pretty popular too. It's weird to think about the fact that NES, Spectrum, MD, Amiga, Atari... were a thing at the same time. Then PSX happened and everything exploded.
Ha, I had the exact same thought while listening to NVC. Yeah, it is a little maddening, if harmless. The UK market is very different from mainland Europe, same with their videogame history and culture. As shown by the sales of jrpgs and Nintendo games. At least, with countries like France, Spain and Italy, the similarities are more obvious.
Oh gawd it was a nightmare. And a game crashing when almost loaded was so frustrating. It was a godsend when I started using the floppy disks. As in the real floppy 6" disks or whatever size they were.
Piracy was huge on those things too.
Yoo I'm from Germany and I played a shitton of Giana Sisters on my C64!
(I also played a lot of NES and Gameboy so there's that)
(I also played a lot of NES and Gameboy so there's that)
I can see what the OP means, Ireland tends to get lumped in with the UK a lot too, we have always shared release dates, what goes for the UK tends to go for Ireland etc.
There are a fair few differences here though. For one, the Playstation has always reigned supreme, even during the 360 era. At one point, Ireland had more Playstations per person than anywhere else in the world, even more than Japan. We also weren't into computers like the Amiga or Spectrum anywhere near as much, the NES and then the Mega Drive were far more popular. Although I was a bit young to have a fully formed opinion on this one.
There are a fair few differences here though. For one, the Playstation has always reigned supreme, even during the 360 era. At one point, Ireland had more Playstations per person than anywhere else in the world, even more than Japan. We also weren't into computers like the Amiga or Spectrum anywhere near as much, the NES and then the Mega Drive were far more popular. Although I was a bit young to have a fully formed opinion on this one.
I played Giana Sisters on a C64 and liked it! I could tell it was a Mario clone but I was ok with that!
Wrong.gif
You don't want people give facts without be sure and you are doing the same thing.
I'm from Spain and I had a gameboy and a snes when I was a kid. I knew plenty of people with NES also and I remember console wars in the schoolyard against the kids with Megadrive and Master System.
Spain has been Sonyland since PS2 because it was really easy to pirate but there's a sizeable Nintendo fanbase and lots of people with Nintendo childhood memories. Plenty of room for Switch growing I think. On the other hand, Xbox has it pretty rough around here.
Spain has been Sonyland since PS2 because it was really easy to pirate but there's a sizeable Nintendo fanbase and lots of people with Nintendo childhood memories. Plenty of room for Switch growing I think. On the other hand, Xbox has it pretty rough around here.
I started playing videogames in early 90's and here in Spain kids most popular characters were Mario and Sonic. Never have a single friend with a "gaming computer"
Anecdotally, I've found that the UK doesn't have much brand loyalty as, say, Spain does where PS consoles always dominate Xbox (iirc).
PS1 was king, as was PS2. But these were the best consoles on offer at the time on account of their wide library and relatively cheap prices.
360 then hit the market and PS3 just didn't have anything to counter Gears in the early period. I know a few people who bought 360s just because they played Gears at a mate's place and it was totally unlike anything available on PS3. Of course, PS3 was cripplingly expensive at the time.
PS4 then corrected all the mistakes and is back on top.
The Wii was massively popular but, again, this was a flash in the pan. DS was also popular for a while but UK consumers seem to be quite fickle and will just buy whatever is popular or what their mate has.
I would also say, having lived on the continent for about 10 years, that the market conditions of the UK are more conducive to the UK seemingly having a larger share of the EU market than it otherwise might have. There are always crazy deals online for games and supermarkets, shops, CEX etc are all engaging in a constant price war which results in rapidly falling prices for new titles.
In Belgium, games were horrifically expensive everywhere and I was better off ordering from Amazon UK.
Again, though, this is all anecdotal. I could well be wrong.
PS1 was king, as was PS2. But these were the best consoles on offer at the time on account of their wide library and relatively cheap prices.
360 then hit the market and PS3 just didn't have anything to counter Gears in the early period. I know a few people who bought 360s just because they played Gears at a mate's place and it was totally unlike anything available on PS3. Of course, PS3 was cripplingly expensive at the time.
PS4 then corrected all the mistakes and is back on top.
The Wii was massively popular but, again, this was a flash in the pan. DS was also popular for a while but UK consumers seem to be quite fickle and will just buy whatever is popular or what their mate has.
I would also say, having lived on the continent for about 10 years, that the market conditions of the UK are more conducive to the UK seemingly having a larger share of the EU market than it otherwise might have. There are always crazy deals online for games and supermarkets, shops, CEX etc are all engaging in a constant price war which results in rapidly falling prices for new titles.
In Belgium, games were horrifically expensive everywhere and I was better off ordering from Amazon UK.
Again, though, this is all anecdotal. I could well be wrong.
I'm not sure an utterance by an NVC host should be taken as representative of anything. It's a fine listen, but they tend to make at least a couple factual errors in every single episode.
I was always Nintendo growing up (in the UK). NES, SNES, GameBoy, N64 etc etc but looking back I do wish I had had a Speccy as well. There is something really attractive and idiosyncratic about those computers and I feel nostalgic about them even though I only used them at other people's houses. I feel the same way, almost, about the Amiga but that doesn't have the same 'home grown' element (although much of the software was).
The UK is very price sensitive, I think that's where the brand loyalty comes from.
There's no breakdowns or even slightly accurate sales information for either machine sadly.
The closest you can get for Amiga is as follows: http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/sales.html
UK and Germany saw similar sales numbers. I'm surprised the total sales aren't much higher though, given almost every kid at my school (in UK) had an Amiga 500 or above!
I don't understand the "of course this happens, people in the U.K. speak English." "Yes, but they're ignorant" doesn't contradict the OP?
This is so hilariously untrue it's baffling as to why you're making up such nonsense.
The NES was released very late in the UK and was extremely expensive. It made very little impact, not least because by that time the 16-bit Amiga and Atari ST were out and well established.
The SNES fared better, but was easily eclipsed by the Mega Drive. Saying 'Sega had some presence' is so absurdly off the mark I can only assume you're posting this from a playground in the 1990s and your comments have somehow traveled through time and onto this forum.
As someone who lives in Germany, this has been a point of frustration for me for a while. Whenever a new game comes out, most English-speaking games media people will always say "a week early in Japan, Tuesday in the US, Friday in the UK" - basically using the UK as a shorthand for "all of Europe" or even flat-out forgetting that there are countries besides the UK where video games are popular. Australia never gets mentioned, either. Maybe it's an American culture thing? It just seems like a lot of people in US games media have barely any idea what's going on outside of their bubble.
1980s actually. Listen, all I remember is that all my friends had Nintendos. I think I first played a NES in 1988 and had one by that Christmas. I had one friend with a Sega and his house smelled weird.
Another point to make is that the UK has, until recently, been the third biggest market for games behind the US and Japan. China has since overtaken everyone and Germany has edged ahead sometime in the last five years but only just and with a bigger population. Anyway, due to size alone, the UK market has been an important one (but is becoming less so). It's still a much bigger market than France, despite having similar sized populations.
I'm from France and the market here is quite different from the UK one. I don't think UK is indeed a good representation of the Europe situation.
The difference is maybe that we have regular UK numbers so it's more easy to discuss.
The difference is maybe that we have regular UK numbers so it's more easy to discuss.
People always say this and I've never seen the receipts. I would really like to see them too.
OK... so why type all that out as fact? You can see that there are people from other countries reading this, and they're going to assume what you wrote is based on something other than vague anecdotal evidence from you and your friends.
Especially as it's the exact opposite of the real situation.
That goes far beyond just the US games market.
Re the NES not being popular in the UK. I'd have to agree with that. Growing up I only knew one kid that had one. In the UK everyone had a Speccy, or AMstrad or a C64. Then you moved on to an Amiga or an Atari ST. After that people mostly moved to a SNES or a Megadrive.
Oh, there definitely was industry. Just different one from consoles. There were a lot more games being made for computers than for consoles, so the sales were spread among more games, plus there was piracy to contend with. But the ammount of developers and gamers dwarfed consoles.
It's not actually that different from current PC vs consoles situation. PC is more popular as gaming platform in the world. It has more games, more devs and more gamers. Consoles on the other hand have more big mainstream hits tha catch mass public attention. Same thing was in 80s. It was golden age of bedroom programmers and small teams on computers vs big (well..big by 80s standards) developers on consoles.
They weren't crazy popular in Ireland either, people had them but they were very niche. The NES and then Mega Drive were the default choices in Ireland, then the Playstation came out and has dominated from day 1 here.
I was the only person that I knew that had an N64, and I knew 1 other person with an Xbox. Anecdotal, I know.
This is a relevant thread with many valid points. For example PC gaming is very popular in Germany, northern and eastern Europe, but if you only followed UK gaming trends you would be completely unaware of that.
Yeah I think that post from Spekkeh vastly underestimates the micro computer games industry in Europe and especially the UK. OK, so it didn't have global reach but "there was hardly an industry in Europe to begin with" is just not correct. Rare and Rockstar were born in that time, to name but two.
No I didn't.
But if you refuse to believe anything until you see sales figures I'm afraid you're in for a long wait.
The most obvious proof though is how little nostalgia the UK market has for Nintendo, since their experience with the early consoles was so different to the rest of the world. The UK has always been Nintendo's most difficult Western market. They didn't even have a UK HQ until halfway through the N64 era.
"To say that the NES was not a thing in the UK is a ridiculous statement"
It's based on being there and remembering the time. The ads, the magazines, what people were playing. On the council estate where I grew up it was NES city.
Valid thread. Always bothered me because literally no other territory in Europe has such an extraordinary shit taste when it comes to games. Of course I'm generalising based on sales data here.
Your subjective reading of nostalgia levels does not constitute any form of proof. You've got scant evidence for your claims so you're really in no better position than the other chap. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, it's just unknown - especially when it comes to the SNES. The numbers just don't seem to be out there.