What if Nintendo Stays in the Arcades (Reboot)

[MemphisC]

this timeline is a reboot of my first ever timeline called What if Nintendo Stayed in the Arcades (V1) and a return to form for my projects. which i kept making and trying to get bigger and bigger until i went into a project so large that i quit and reflected on what project i should do; and after reading my oldest TL a little bit. I wanted to remake this TL with all the advancement i made though in the past 6 months on this website.

So here we go, Nintendo is and has been a household name in the gaming industry and now in entertainment industry as an whole but they started out as an card maker in 1889 making hanafuda cards to get past Japanese gambling laws and were a toy maker for the vast majority of its life and in the late 1970's they dipped their toes as arcade developers but abandoned in-house arcade development all together after the NES/Famicom was such an successful machine that they started to focusing exclusively on home consoles (and later handhelds). But what if, Nintendo stayed in the arcades and developed advanced arcade hardware to compete with Sega and all other Arcade game developers and stayed in the arcades until the modern day where the arcades are still popular in western markets. What changes to the gaming industry would happen from an more arcade-centric Nintendo and a more arcade-centric gaming industry, what acquisitions would happen, and what new franchises would Nintendo and have due to the arcades.

there will also be a lot of other companies that go much differently ITTL like Atari, Sega, Sony, RCA, and Apple but the main focus is on Nintendo and what they do.

But now, we have to go way back to the 50's to see where it all began.

Welcome to "What if Nintendo Stays in the arcades (Reboot)"

​

main links i use : https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/...ft1inHRKF1cFTtQDA_97BHQIj6EwLivtO93c&usqp=CAU, https://www.copetti.org, fantendo.fandom.com/wiki/Fantendo:Main_Menu, https://videogames-fanon.fandom.com/wiki/Video_Games_Fanon_Wiki, and https://www.wikipedia.org.

Edit: added some text about Nintendo's beginning with hanafuda cards.
Another edit: added new sentences about other companies that changed ITTL.
Third edit: updated the name to the new name.

 

[MemphisC]

we would start in the 1950's; where a little company named Nintendo who was most well known for their Hanafuda cards saw a successful industry that started to build up in Japan and America. This industry that Nintendo was interested in was the coin-up industry; also called the arcades. The coin-up industry in the 50's were dominated by two companies at this time and were both American; one was Gottlieb and the other was Seymour Corporation (a Texas game company started in the 1910's). Gottlieb was the king of pinball and basically started the pinball industry and Seymour Corporation dominated almost everything else as they held a stranglehold on the worldwide arcade scene with any electromechanical games or all the other staple games (pinball was the one exception). Nintendo was interested in joining the arcade market as well as toys due to declining interest in hanafuda cards. Nintendo's first attempt of a pinball machine was in 1952 based on Japanese folklore and sold fairly well recieved in Japan. the next couple of pinball machines and EM's were made from 1952-1955 as well but never did all to well. in 1955 Nintendo was starting to give up on the arcade endeavor and focus all on toys and in this time Nintendo had three big smash hit machines released that year that would change nintendo's trajectory forever. these three machine were Astroboy's Fantastic Pinball, Saberman's Stampede, and Looney Tunes Pinball party (released by the Newly opened Nintendo of America and the original NoJ). These three pinball machines made Nintendo 25 million dollars in the first year of debut and broke the American stranglehold in the arcades and became third on the most successful arcade companies in the mid to late 50's.

the 60's was the same story, plus the break up Seymour Corporation into two new companies (Seymour Tabletop games and Seymour Arcade Corp.). Nintendo was releasing successful EM games and Pinball machines like machines based of all of Osamu Tezuka's manga series, the Looney tunes, and games based off Disney films at this time. Nintendo also made four new IPs during the 60's; Dillon's Rolling Western, Pinbot, Duck Hunt, and Mach Rider. they also made successful toys like the ultra hand created by Gunpei Yokoi that was massive commercial successes. Nintendo however started to have new competition aside from Seymour and Gottlieb (plus a few other pinball companies) as well. Rally was a French Nuclear turned Pinball company making very advanced and successful machines. Sega was another competitor that started to truly compete and even beat out Nintendo at times like with the game called Periscope in 1966. Nintendo had a true competitor in Japan and this would start a massive rivalry for the next 40 years. the 60's was a good decades but the early 70's was a slap in nintendo's face as Nintendo was unprepared for a brand new company called Syzygy (founded by Nolan Bushnell) that created a game called computer space in 1971. while the game was only a mild success; Nintendo knew that if these games took off, they would completely cannibalize the pinball industry and kill the EM games. Nintendo's fears became reality the next year when Syzygy (Renamed to Atari) released Pong and it was a massive success and the Magnavox Odyssey being released the same year. these two developments shook up the entire arcade industry and made Nintendo realize that they needed to develop hardware to take advantage of the massive pong craze created by Atari. by 1973, Nintendo with help with some Japanese manufacturers created Nintendo's first video game.

edit: edited text to make more sense.

 

[MemphisC]

Nintendo in 1972 started development on what would be their first video game and the first to use discrete logic as CPUs were barely a thing at this point and they were morbidly expensive at the time. this era of Nintendo from 1973 - 1979 would see the evolution of many of their franchises from EM's and Pinball to Discrete logic and in 1977 the shift towards boards with micro processors best shown with the Astro and JackBot boards (will be discussed later) with Intel. we saw many of Nintendo's franchises get a major boost or even starting at this time like Mario, Sky Hawk, and Sheriff. Nintendo had a advantage against everybody else aside from Atari as they were the first to jump into video games and it will take a couple years for companies like Midway, Bally, Williams, Seymour Arcades, Rally, and Sega to catch up but when they finally catches up in 1975 - 1977 with many new companies (all the Same as OTL) it became a massive battleground in this booming industry. this will soon go over to the home console industry and the development of the first generation arcade hardware.

this table; includes most of the major video games that released during 1973 to 1979. many more was released but these were the games that had the most importance in this era of nintendo.

the next two chapters for this TL will be about nintendo's arcade hardware and the second generation of consoles.

edit: added a link for some of Nintendo games i based it off: https://www.niwanetwork.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_arcade_games

Game Title	Date of Release	Arcade Cabinets Sold	Info
Space Launcher	Fall 1973	1,500 - 2,500	one of the first successful space combat games ever released
Pong Tron	Fall 1973	2,000 - 4,000	early clone of Pong.
Jackbot (Pinbot spinoff)	Summer 1974	around 1,000	one of the first video pinball machines
Astroboy (the first video game)	1974	5,000 - 7,500	First video game to use IP from existing franchise.
EVR Race	1974	around 1,250	one of the first racing games ever. also was the first major use of the EVR home format.
Duck Hunt	1974	1,000 - 3,000	the first successful light gun game. introduced the duck hunt dog.
Battle Shark	1975	2,500 - 3,000	a remake of the EM game from 1965.
Dillion's Rolling Western (the video game)	1975	500 - 1,500	used a Intel 4004 CPU for the game. had failed to take off because of cost. would be important for later.
Mach Rider (The video Game)	1976	around 5,000	similar to Fonz arcade game. did very well in america and japan.
Sky Hawk	1976	around 10,000	a early version of what afterburner was. successful game for Nintendo and would create a franchise.
Nintendo Pro Rally	1976	8,000 - 12,500	successful Racing game. created a new franchise
Saberman Stampede: Montezuma's Revenge	1977	around 40,000	first game to use the Astro Platform. one of the earliest platformers ever made and the first to have a true plot.
Looney tunes birthday blowout	1977	2,500 - 3,250	an decent tie-in game.
Wild Gunmen	1978	5,000 - 6,000	Same as OTL. a fairly successful shooter game series for Nintendo.
Computer Othello	1978	around 2,000	the first game created by Shigeru Miyamoto.
Block Fever	1978	less than 2,500	Last game to use Discrete logic and the only one since 1976. a rip off of Breakout.
Sheriff	1979	around 10,000	successful multiplayer and Ikari warriors style game.
Space Fever	1979	less than 2,500	Space Invaders Rip-off.
Mario Bros.	1979	25,000 - 40,000	Same as OTL, a truly successful game that would get even bigger in 1980 with a certain ape and plumber to boot.

 

[MemphisC]

Nintendo started using CPU's as early as 1974 with the first arcade game of Dillion's Rolling Western, the game didn't do to well because of it's cost and the fact that nobody at Nintendo knew how to use the CPU for games so the game didn't take full advantage of the 4004 CPU. by 1975 however, Nintendo starts development on a project with the American chip manufacturer Intel to develop two pieces of hardware to compete with Atari. both pieces of hardware would use a 8085 processor but have completely different custom chipsets that distinguishes them apart. these arcade boards are the Astro Board and the Jackbot Board. part one will be about the Astro board.

The Astro board: the Astro Board was the more advanced of the two boards and one if not the first example of arcade hardware that can be easily swapped out to play new arcade games (like the Neo Geo MVS), it also allowed the use of Cassette Tapes and Floppy Disks as well. the unique chips that the Astro board use would be the the Mach 186 chip (that does all the advanced graphics of the Astro board) and the Monte chip that does all the sound of the system. this chipset made the system one of the most powerful machines of it's time and allowed for games that have around Colecovision level graphics in 1977. Franchises like Mario and Radar Scope were started here plus the acquisition of Osamu Tezuka's IPs in 1978 gave Nintendo a ton of Manga tie-ins and a potential for a new venture to release in the 80's. And the final important thing this system did was help create the pretty popular Famicom/NES in 1978/1979 that started Nintendo home console legacy (the TV-game 6 and 15 never exist ITTL) due to being a scaled back Astro board with major differences. the Astro board had a good run but eventually was discontinued by Nintendo in 1983 for better hardware to come from Nintendo. here are the specs of the Astro Board!

The Astro Board​

Release date	November 9, 1977 (JP) March 13, 1978 (NA) June 25, 1978 (EU and Everywhere else)
Lifespan	1977 - Early 1983
Manufacturers	Intel
Developers	Nintendo, Intel
Cost	$2,999 at launch
CPU	Intel 8085 (3 MHz)
VDP	Nintendo Mach 186 Chip (8 bit, 1.86 MHz)
RAM	32 KB of RAM
Media	Cartridge (up to 32/64 KB) Cassette (up to 96 KB) Floppy Disk (up to 96 KB)
Color Palate	up to 32 colors (advanced effects and techniques can push it up to 121 colors)
Sprites	up to 8 sprites (2 colors) or 4 sprites (4 or 8 colors)
Resolution	160 x 192 or 320 x 384
Sound Chip	Nintendo Sound System "Monte" (3 PSG channels, similar to the VIC-20)
Other Features	can do some parallax scrolling, 4 bit DAC, tile mode and bitmap modes, and multiplayer
Games Released	around 30 games (4 bootleg games)

Next Chapter will be about the jackbot board.

 

[MemphisC]

While the Astro board was doing very well in the arcades as their high end arcade hardware, the Jackbot board was built around the same time for a different reason and it was to be put into Nintendo's pinball machines and specialty arcade machines with gimmicks inside of it. the Jackbot board contained the same Intel 8085 CPU as what was in Astro board but that is pretty much the only thing they have in common as the Jackbot was very different as in terms of power as it was around the same as the Apple 2, with little to no sound generation, little RAM (4k) and little to no video generation as it is all done by the CPU. this system seems like a stupid idea to even make but there was one advantage that even the much more powerful Astro board couldn't do and it is expandability. the Jackbot board could be expanded easily for any reason. one example is the Pinball module in 1977 that adds all the microprocessors and RAM to deal with the early SS pinball machines and the Laserdisc Module that allows for FMV games to be made by Nintendo.

The Jackbot board was first used in November 13, 1977 with the Pinball machine called Saberman: Minotaur's Caverns and the first laserdisc games ever made called Kimba's Adventure and the Looney tunes game show released in the arcades. all three games were successful in their own rights and made the Jackbot board a priority to support with pinball machines, laserdisc games, and any other arcade machines that Nintendo made in the arcades. from 1977 till 1983; Nintendo made over 80 pinball machines, 25 laserdisc games, and 40 other arcade games by using the jackbot board. but by 1984 the Jackbot board started to become obsolete when Nintendo starting making much better dedicated boards for everything that the Jackbot board did (starting with the Laserbot board for laserdiscs in 1982 and then the Pinbot Pinball Controller board in 1983) were released and took all the importance of the Jackbot board and by late 1984 it was dead. but the Jackbot board would be an important part of pinball history and nintendo's history as it paved the way for the next generation of nintendo's specialty hardware to come.

next chapter will be about the first few years of the second generation (1976-1978).

 

[MemphisC]

The Beginning of the Second Generation of game consoles (1976-1979)

Video created by: The Gaming Historian​

The beginning of the second generation started in 1976 with the Fairchild Channel F releasing in Semptember 1976 in north America and early 1977 everywhere else. the Fairchild Channel F created some concepts that had never been done before (like the cartridge and the CPU based console) and the Fairchild Channel F sold well during 1976 holiday season. Nintendo saw the Fairchild Channel F as a great idea and started developing their own game console starting in 1976 with Intel as support; another company called Atari started development on their own system at the same time. 1977 was a good year for the Fairchild Channel F as it sold over 1 million units that year and over 25 cartridges released that year too and Nintendo is still developing their system as Intel created a New CPU called the Intel 8065 and the Quetzal Video chip; development was slow however but that would change when the Atari 2600 and the Bally Astrocade releases in the end of 1977 with big success (especially the 2600) as both consoles collectively sold 2.5 million units that Christmas season. this made Nintendo paranoid that if they took too long to develop their system they would have no chance of succeeding in the market, so Nintendo pushed the "Nintendo Entertainment system/Famicom" forward a lot so that the system would make it by Holidays 1978. Fairchild Channel F started to face competition and knew that they have to fight hard and compete with Atari to keep their throne that they had for the past 2 years; this attempt was not successful and Atari pretty much killed off the Fairchild Channel F by 1979; Fairchild quit and sold their console division to Zircon International corporation and kept the Fairchild Channel F alive till 1984 when it was officially dead, and Jerry Lawson was fired from his job and started his own company called Videosoft in 1985. Bally's Astrocade was pretty expensive compared to the Atari 2600 and was only a niche console. Atari's 1978 year was very successful as it dominated the year and anybody that joined in like the APF Imagination machine would get crushed by the Atari 2600 and it stayed like this till the end of 1978 Atari started getting competition with the Magnavox Odyssey 2 and the Nintendo Famicom/NES were released. the Famicom dominated Japan where Atari had little presence there and the Odyssey 2 was tied with the Atari in Europe. 1979 was another large year for the industry as we saw the start of the first third party company Activision make Pitfall and River raid, the NES/Famicom takes some market share, the Odyssey and Astrocade did the same, a new competitor called the Intellvision also joined in too, and Atari was starting to hit mass popularity with Warner Bros as a partner to Atari (Atari would never be bought up by Warner Bros). this era would be the most important of the gaming industry as it build up mass popularity to the gaming industry in general, many genres were created, and many innovative games would be created during this stretch of time called the second generation.

next chapter will be about the NES/famicom, and then the SABER/M. board.

edit: added text about Jerry Lawson and the fate of the Fairchild Channel F. and credited the guy who created the video.

 

[MemphisC]

The Nintendo Entertainment System (also known as the Famicom in Japan) was the first Nintendo console and one of the biggest competitors to the Atari 2600. The Nintendo NES/ Famicom started development all the way in early 1976 after hearing about the Fairchild Channel F; so Nintendo with the help of Intel started with the codename Viper. Viper development from early 1976 till around mid 1977 was fairly slow; the chipset containing the Intel 8065 was developed around this time and early prototypes were made as well. Project Viper was doing alright in development until Nintendo hears that one of Nintendo's biggest threats Atari were making their own console called the Atari 2600 and releasing in late 1977. this was big trouble for Nintendo as Atari one up-ed on Nintendo with the Atari 2600 and that the Atari 2600 with funding by Warner Bros. was doing very well during the Christmas season of 1977; Nintendo needed to increase RnD and speed up on development if they want to release Project Viper (now named the NES/Famicom) in Holidays 1978. these 15 months were pretty tough as they had to finish the specs, make games for it, and start mass production for the Christmas season launch; this was a tough ask for Nintendo's newly started hardware division but they were able to meet the deadline of November 18, 1978 in North America and Japan.

The Nintendo Entertainment System launched with 15 games at launch the biggest being the port of Saberman Stampede: Montezuma's Revenge and Dunk Hunt NES (most of the other launch games are simple sports game and arcade ports). the system specs wise was much more powerful than the Atari 2600 and around the same as the Intellivision console to release next year at $199.99. The Famicom dominated Japan utterly as Atari had little presence there and it sold over 20 million consoles in Japan alone and had the most support there. Europe was pretty good for Nintendo as it was third place only being behind the 2600 and Odyssey 2. America was where the NES faced the most competition as it faced so much competition there; but it was the second place winner that generation selling 5 million consoles before it's discontinuation in 1987; only being behind the juggernaut Atari 2600. the Famicom/NES also birthed the Carnieligan franchise, the Panel de Pon franchise, the Puzzle League Franchise, and the first console mario games. this system was very important as it also introduced the D-pad for the exclusively Saberman game: Saberman Stampede: the Wild lands in 1981 (the NES had Atari style joysticks at launch before this); something that will be very important for Nintendo's next generation console in the mid 80's. here are the specs.

NES/Famicom Specs:​

Release Date	November 18, 1978 (NA & JP) August 7, 1979 (Everywhere else)
Manufacturers	Intel, Nintendo
Developers	Intel, Nintendo
Cost	$199.99 at launch ($99.99 later models)
CPU	Intel 8065 (8 bit, 2 MHz)
VDP	Viper (1 MHz)
RAM	2 kB base RAM 32 kB with Floppy disk system add-on
Media	Cartridge (up to 32 kB; more can be used by bank switching) Floppy Disk (up to 128 kB; dual sided; 64 kB on each side)
Color Palate	up to 32 colors (advanced techniques can push up to 61 colors)
Sprites	6 sprites (2 colors) 3-4 sprites (4 to 6 colors) more can be used but they flicker)
Resolution	160 x 140 to 360 x 240
Sound Chip	Hawk (2 PSG channels; similar to Intellivision)
other features	capabilities similar to the intellivision
Amount of units sold	28.2 Million sold total (worldwide) 20.1 Million (JP) 5.7 Million (NA) 2.4 Million (EU)
Lifespan	1978 - late 1986 (JP) 1978 - 1987 (NA) 1979 - 1987 (EU)
Amount of games released	300+
Controllers	the NES/Famicom joystick (16 directional joystick with two buttons and a pause button, controllers sold with system or sold seperately) The NES/Famicom D-pad (Directional pad with the same buttons as the joystick; sold seperately) NES Zapper (same as OTL Zapper)
Add-ons	Famicom/NES Disk System (1980-1986)

​

next chapter will be about the S.A.B.E.R/M series board and some of the early games that released on it. then the other Nintendo arcade hardware around this time (1980-1983).

 

[MemphisC]

after the success of the Astro board, Jackbot, and Project Viper (ITTL NES/Famicom); Nintendo started developing on another piece of hardware but without Intel this time as their project as Intel was too preoccupied on a another project with IBM to create the IBM PC platform in 1981. Nintendo instead had to get another processor manufacturer to help develop their new and more powerful arcade platform; they found one and it was MOS technologies with the MOS 6502 processor. this partnership started in 1978 and would last up till the mid 1990's. Intel was mad about this but Nintendo made a deal with Intel that gives them access to make the Laserbot platform and then later the super scaler's but that is another chapter for another day. but MOS technologies 6502 processors were significantly more efficient than the Intel 8085 that the Astro board used and were much cheaper than the 8085. MOS also around this time developing a video chip called "Saberman" and the early version of what would be the TTL's SID Chips used in the Commodore 64 and would be the basis for SNES/Super Famicom in the mid 80's. development on the Saber board would be pretty short lasting only 8 months as Commodore and MOS technologies were experimenting with this tech already and when Nintendo asked if they team up to make an arcade platform together, they had all the tech nearly ready they need in order to make a platform quickly. the Saber platform would be first shown off in late 1979 with two games; Radar scope and Popeye.

Popeye and Radar Scope (1979-1980)

two of the earliest games shown using the Saber hardware: Radar Scope and the Popeye game​

the earliest games shown on nearly complete hardware would be the games Radar Scope and Popeye. when these games were shown off in CES 1979/1980; it was very impressive to most people at the time and for the price at only $7,999 per cabinet could not be beat. Radar scope was the first game released using this hardware in February 1980 worldwide and it was fairly successful creating a new franchise along the way. Popeye was supposed to release in June of 1980 worldwide with a batch of early games and it did in Japan but the licenses suddenly changed in America last minute and Nintendo of America had a bunch of cabinets that they could not sell because of license disputes (it would take till 1982 when it finally released in America). 10 million dollars was on the line and they needed to sell it by October 1980 or they lose a ton of money. miraculously a fairly new employee at Nintendo called Shigeru Miyamoto created a game in a few short months that would give Nintendo two new mascots that would even overshadow that of saberman. this was Donkey Kong and Mario in the Donkey Kong arcade game.

Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. Plus (1980/1981)

gameplay of Donkey Kong and Mario Bros plus.​

when Donkey Kong released in the North American arcades in late 1980. it was a smash hit and made Mario and Donkey Kong superstars. while Mario already had a fairly successful game a year earlier; this game blew Mario bros out of the water and also did fantastic in Japan and it was further cemented by the extremely success remake called Mario Bros plus in 1981.

Fix-It Felix, Jr, Donkey Kong Jr, and Qbert (1982)

Gameplay of Fix-It Felix Jr, Donkey Kong Jr, and Qbert​

1981 was a fairly boring year for the Saber board as aside from Mario Bros. Plus there was little else. this was about to change in 1982 with a successful sequel to successful and two new IP's created by a partnership with Pinball and arcade company Gottlieb. Donkey Kong Jr. was a successful sequel to DK1 and sold almost as many; but Qbert and Wreck It Ralph were Nintendo of America and Gottlieb creations. in 1980, the Pinball company Gottlieb started to jump into arcade games and Nintendo was the first ones to partner with them as Seymour was in no position to work with Nintendo after being bought by Phillips, Nintendo had decent relations with Gottlieb as they did compete with them in America, Nintendo also sold parts to Gottlieb and sold Gottlieb's pinball machines to the Japanese market. Gottlieb and NoA started on two projects together which was Fix-It Felix Jr, and Qbert. when both games released in 1982; both games would be extremely successful in the arcades and increase relations about the Gottlieb and Nintendo Partnership for the next few years.

now the system itself:
​

When the first generation of the saber board hardware released in February 1980 with Radar Scope; it was nearing cutting edge as it was more powerful than almost anything at the time showing thing this that OTL NES could do and even more. it was also pretty expensive at the time but was much cheaper than the earliest 16 bit hardware like Rally's Fission, Atari's Cannon board, and most hardware using Laserdiscs. the Saber board would be extremely successful having over 100 games released with many versions of the saber hardware contain many custom chips made by Nintendo like the Swan, Edsel, and Rocket microprocessors that added many new abilities/capabilities to the hardware during the consoles 12 year lifespan before being discontinued in 1992 for its 16 bit successor; called Venus. this family of hardware created franchises Donkey Kong, Punch out, Fix-It Felix Jr., Qbert, Panel De Pon, Dragon King, a good game based off Tezuka, and even more classics with the ten year lifespan it had. here are the specs of the Saber Board.

Release Date	February 1980 (Worldwide with Radar Scope release)
Lifespan	February 1980 - October 1992
Variants	many variations containing different custom chips for specific games
Manufacturers	Nintendo, MOS Technologies
Developers	MOS Technologies, Commodore, Nintendo
CPU	MOS 6502 series (8 bit 6502 at 1.75 MHz to a 16 bit 65c02 at 8 MHz)
VDP	VIC series (ranging from 1 MHz to 4 MHz)
RAM	ranges in version (anywhere from 32 kB to 256 kB)
Media	Cartridge (anywhere from 64 to 512 kB) Floppy Disk (anywhere from 64 kB to 1.44 MB)
Color Palate	ranges for version (64 to 4096 colors)
Sprites	ranges for version (16 to 480 sprites) (2 to 64 colors per sprite) (4 to 24 sprites per scanline)
Resolution	anywhere from 140x196 to 640 x 480
Graphics modes	Bitmap mode and Tile Graphics
Sound Chips	SID (basically the SID from OTL), 8-bit DAC, Yamaha YM2151, and Ricoh Swan sound chip
Custom Chips	Rocket (8/16 bit Blitter chip), Edsel (Faster RAM and VDP), and Ricoh Swan (10 PSG, 8 FM channels with 16 kB sound RAM)
other features/capabilities	depends on which version of the Saber board you have (minimum capabilities NES OTL, maximum capabilities OTL Amiga 1000)
Amount of Games Released	around 125 games (by 1992)

next chapter will be about the other Nintendo hardware at this time, and talk about the IP's at this time.

edit: changed Wreck it Ralph to Fix-It Felix Jr., added some text about Gottlieb and Nintendo's relationship. and added some text about what is happening next.
another edit: modified the specs and the amount of games the Saber 100 & 110 has.
Massive Edit: retconned the old specs for the Saber board and did this instead.

 

[MemphisC]

Nintendo during the this time was very successful in the Arcade with the Astro Board and the Saber Board at this time, they also had a fair amount of other arcade hardware at this time as well that was not as successful but has their place in Nintendo's Arcade History. i will talk about all of them briefly in a list.

1. Arcade Entertainment system; Codename "Roy": basically a NES/Famicom with much more RAM than the base console. it was pretty popular as it lasted from 1980-1986 before being dead and creating Space Firebird and Heli-fire as new franchises.

2. Laserbot: Nintendo's Sequel to the Jackbot's Laserdisc controller; Nintendo worked with RDI systems to create Dragon's Lair and Space Ace which were big successes in America which caused Nintendo to create more laserdisc games afterwards (Dragon's Lair and Space Ace is not owned by Nintendo ITTL; i was just funded ITTL). the Laserbot System lasted from 1981 till 1995 when it was officially discontinued and no more Laserdisc system's were created after this one.

3. Pinbot Pinball and Pachinko Controller: Nintendo's First actual Pinball hardware using Microprocessors; used in most of Gottlieb's and Nintendo's Pinball and Pachinko's Games. Similar to what Williams had in OTL. lasted from 1982 till 2000 as it was replaced by better pinball technology at this point. a ton of pinball machines were released on this system including some massive successful ones based on Mario and Batman.

4. System 1: Nintendo's first dedicated sprite scaler using the new 16 bit Intel 80188 processor running at 8 MHz and a custom 16 bit Blitter and VDP chips running at 6 MHz. used from 1982 till 1987. many Racing games came out on this system and the first successful Dillion Rolling Western and Valiant Heroes game were released first on this system.

5. Special/other: this contains the games that used specific hardware and no other games used it; this category contains three specific games; R.O.B. and the Monolithic Machine which along with I, Robot were some of the first 3d games with polygons. the second was Space Bomber which used vector graphics for the graphics and gameplay. the final one to mention was Dillion's Power Pinball that was a Pinball and Game Hybrid.

The next three chapters will consist of Nintendo's new IPs by 1983, the Game and Watch, and the rest of the 2nd console generation.

edit: added info about Dragon's lair.
edit: going to be new posts about some new hardware; the System 1 and the Nintendo Vector series.

 

[MemphisC]

by 1983, Nintendo has a lot of franchises under it's belt with Mario, Astroboy and Donkey Kong but there are a ton of new franchises that Nintendo has ITTL and i will discuss all of them that exist up to this point. (Not counting anything from OTL, Osamu Tezuka, and Popeye). here they are.

website used for scaling: https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Tiering_System
Addition: this does not count for media like Movies, TV Shows, Comic, Manga, Anime, and Animations; they can have much different levels of power and all the powers that is told about these series are for the video game canon.

Saberman Stampede Series: Saber Stampede would be one of if not Nintendo first major exclusive franchise that they made al the way in the 50's. the Major characters would be Saber, Montezuma, Enguarde, The Mountain King, and Quetzalcoatl. the games itself would play an lot like Montezuma's revenge and pitfall IOTL and be connected to donkey Kong and the Mario franchise later on.
- Saber's character would be an weird mix of Indiana Jones, Wario, Don Quixote, and hunter Van Pelt (from the 1995 Jumanji), he would be an famous hunter of magical beasts during the 19th century and finder of mysterious artifacts for cash, but also saving the world and the realms along with it.
- his main rival dreaded Quetzalcoatl: an powerful magical beast that can shapeshift, can manipulate ice, poison, electricity, and fire, can fly in the air and causes massive shockwaves by hitting his head onto the ground.
- the true villains of the franchise are Montezuma and the Mountain King; who are gods of magical beasts and the twelve Realms that would do anything to ruin humanity and create a society for the Magical Beasts
- Engaurde is a powerful magical beast that Saberman considers an ally and a worthy adversary who helps Saberman along the way to save the world from evil.
if we ranked the power of the Saberman Stampede Franchise by using VS. Battle Scaling (which i used for all of them i scaled); the Franchise would be anywhere from 9-A to 2-A if anybody wanted to know.

Canrieligan Series: the Carieligan Series would be Nintendo's magical girl franchise, Carnieligan would get many Manga and Anime adaptations some of which will eventually come to America. the game consists of Carnieligan an Royal magician who does an show at her home planet of Europa when an evil being called jevil starts taking over earth and the entire milky way to spread darkness and misery all over the galaxy, after the news is given to Carnieligan would changes form and be launched to earth making many friends along the way and stop jevil's and his gangs plans. the game would play very differently from almost any of Nintendo franchises ever did as it is both a musical and a traditional platformer series with varying levels of gameplay.
the power of this series would be anywhere from 11-C to 0.

Characters so Far: (Carneiligan, Jevil, Jexter, Mongolia, GameMaster, Piedmont, Hercules, Magni, and Alice)

the Puzzle League Franchise: A collection of many different puzzle games that be encompassed in one franchise aside from Panel De Pon.

Pinbot Series: the Nintendo Staple Pinball series containing a race of robotic Living beings called Pinbots that rule over galaxies and play pinball using planets and stars all day because of sheer boredom. Plays like pinball.
the power of the verse would be anything over 4-A.

Battle Shark: Nintendo's Submarine franchise. not much else to say.

Dillion's Rolling Western: A Pinball, Turn Based, and Speed Platform Western Game featuring Dillion the Armadillo and is one of nintendo's oldest series being supported; would later compete with Sonic during the 90's.
the power of this verse would be anywhere from 9-B to 6-A.

Sky Hawk: Nintendo's version of Afterburner and flight combat games.

Fix It Felix Jr.: Nintendo of America's And Gottlieb first truly successful game and introduces Felix Jr. and Ralph. Connected to the Mario Verse and plays like OTL Fix it Felix Jr. had some sequels but never was as successful as Mario but did well in Mario spinoffs.
power of Felix is 7-C/5-C while Ralph is high 7-A/4-B depending in game/franchise.

Nintendo Pro Rally: it would be nintendo's main simulation and arcade racing franchise. most similar to GT, Sega's Racing games and Forza.

Sheriff: Nintendo's adult western franchise featuring the sheriff (a nameless gunman) fixing and living the semi-steampunk wild west doing what he can to stop crime as well as not getting into crime himself. plays very different depending on which game it is.
power of this verse would range from 10-B to 6-C.

Characters of this franchise so far: (Sheriff, Chimero, and El Macho)

Radar Scope (includes Space Firebird): Radar scope would be Nintendo's overhead shooting franchise, the gimmick would that you can use enemies weapons and there would only be speed and bomb powerups so if you want the laser weapon you have to kill the enemy and collect the weapon to use it. Space Firebird would act kind of like Sinistar in his game.
the power of this verse is 8-A to 3-B.

Dragon King: Nintendo's Premier Fighting game franchise until a certain video game crossover comes out in 1997 for the N64. plays a mix of the crossover and Street Fighter.
Power of this verse range from 10-C to 5-A.

Characters for Dragon King so Far: (Joe Marshall, Manchu, the Dragon King, Spring Jack, and Skipper).

Valiant Heroes: Nintendo's Superhero beat-em up franchise; plays differently based on if it is the 2d or the 3d games.
power of the verse would range from 10-C to 5-C.

Characters of this verse so far: (Samson, Oko, BoomBastic, and Megadroids).

Q-Bert: basically OTL but more popular and lasts longer.

Heli-Fire: Nintendo's Helicopter game franchise. not much else to say.

next three chapters will be about the Game and Watch, the Second gen in general, and the video game crash of 1983.

Edit: changed some of the stats for the power and mentioned some characters for some of the new franchises described below, added info about the verses.

 

[MemphisC]

this chapter will be a pretty short chapter because of the topic it focuses on.

The Game and Watch series of LCD games were started by Gunpei Yokoi during the late 70's as an idea to make portable gaming available to the masses by using LCD watch technology to make simple high score based games. this started with the Game called Ball released in 1978 in Japan and 1979 everywhere else to high success selling over 1 million units in it first year. this was due to the low price and the pick up and play nature of the game (Plus it was a clock and it had a fantastic battery life). more games would come out in the Game and Watch line with different form factors and models for each LCD game.

The line started with the Silver Series in 1978 with the game Ball and lasts for 2 years before being replaced by the Gold Series which was largely the same to the Silver Series. the Wide screen in 1981 was largely the same to the Silver and Gold Series but with wider screen. Most of the Game and Watch models afterwards were practically the same as the Wide screen models though with six exceptions.

- 1981: The Vertical Multiscreen Variant was one of the most popular versions of the game and saw the birth of the D-pad and was the influence for the DS platform 20-ish years later.
- 1981: The Horizontal Multiscreen Variant was similar to the Vertical one but have two screens side to side instead of top to bottom (not as successful as the Vertical variation)
- 1982: Table Top variant looks like a portable Arcade Machine.
- 1983: Panorama Variant is a modified table top variant with the ability to display widescreen graphics.
- 1984: Super Color is a version that had a color vertical aspect ratio.
- 1985: the Micro Vs System is a Multiplayer variant of the Widescreen variant.

the Game and Watch line would finally be discontinued in 1990 by the Nintendo Game Boy Handheld which made most LCD games outdated and obsolete due to the portability and power of the original Game Boy. the Game and Watch line was a massive success selling over 75 million in it's lifetime and starting Nintendo's Dominance in portable gaming for the next 30 years.

next few chapter is about all the other home console players during this Generation and the video game crash of 1983.

 

[MemphisC]

Nintendo was doing well in the Second Generation with the Game and Watch line and the Famicom/NES was doing well as it was the second best selling console that generation. Nintendo's arcade output was also second to none in this era as well. but who was the First in the race and who was some of the other players this generation.

This is part one of a four of posts briefly describing all the other major players during the Second Generation; this first part will be about the Atari 2600 and 5200 platforms this generation.

Atari:​

Atari 2600​

The Atari 2600 with the main controllers and the Atari 2600 Jr.
​

The Atari 2600 platform was the most successful Home Console this generation selling over 40 million units over it's 15 year lifespan. this was such a successful platform for three reasons. one was the low price of the system and the power in it; while it was power of the system a joke compared to the later Colecovision and the Bally Astrocade. it was more powerful than the Fairchild Channel F and for the price of 199.99 it was a no brainer to get a Atari 2600. another reason that it ahead of most of the competition by a year and more compared to Atari which allowed them to develop many great games that would give the consumer better reason to go with Atari rather than the NES or the Intellivision. the third reason that the Financial Backing of Warner Bros. While Nolan Bushnell does stay as the CEO of Atari and is the CEO of Atari's new subsidiary Chuck E. Cheese; Warner Bros owns a large stake of Atari that is around 25 to 33 percent. the reason that Warner Bros doesn't buy Atari is because the meeting with Nolan Bushnell about Atari goes mixed to where they saw a purpose in working with Atari but not enough to actually buying them along with his Chuck E. Cheese project too; so they partner up instead and with this backing from Warner Bros during the early years of the 2600 this gave the Atari 2600 a massive marketing budget and licensing rights for IPs like Superman and the Looney Tunes. the Warner Bros support for Atari would end by 1984 due to the video game crash as the WB would sell all of its shares from Atari and would move over fully to Nintendo with support.

the console had such a long lifespan was that all their successors were never as successful as the 2600. the 5200 and 7800 were somewhat successful but were heavily overshadowed by the SNES and the Master System. the Atari 2600 in it's later years was still supported with games like Klax and the Atari 2600 Jr was the lowest end options for poor families way to play video games. though support for the Atari 2600 would officially end in 1992.

The Atari 2600 had a lasting legacy that very few could match as it ushered the Home Console Industry and made them popular in the first place and had some legendary games like Pitfall and YARS Revenge; here are the specs.

Release Date	NA: Semptember 1977 EU: 1978 JP: January 1981
Cost	$199.99 at launch ($49.99 for the Atari Jr.)
Games released	over 500 officially (thousands more were unlicensed)
Specs	Basically OTL 2600: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_2600#Hardware
Sales	40.8 Million by 1992 28.2 Million in NA 11.8 Million in EU 800,000 in JP
Lifespan	1977 to 1992

Atari 5200​

the Atari 5200 plus the Atari 5200 controller
​

The Atari 5200 was the true successor to the Atari 2600 and was based off of the Atari 400 computer released in 1978. when it was released in 1981 it was one of the most powerful consoles of that generation only being beaten out by the Colecovision, the Fairchild Ultravision, and the SG-1000. the Atari 5200 had backwards compatibility with the Atari 2600 gave the 5200 a large amount of software at launch. along with some good arcade ports would have made the 5200 a success right. it was for two years till the video game crash of 1983 ruined everything as the 5200 as for 16 months the game industry was at a crawl and when it was over; the Super Famicom/SNES was coming and people were saving their money and waiting in anticipation for it's launch in Japan and North America. so the Atari 5200 would be shelved by Atari for the rushed Atari 7800 in order to compete with Nintendo and that is how the 5200 was for the rest of its life until it's discontinuation in 1989.

a add-on that came out in 1983 was the Disk add-on that allowed the 5200 to become a low-end Atari 400 computer; allowing for full backwards compatibility for the 400.

the system lasted till 1989 when it was officially discontinued for the 7800 and the Panther. the lifespan of the 5200 was long and short as while it was supported till 1989, the Atari 7800 released only three years later and cannibalized all the 5200 sales due to it having 2600 and 5200 backwards compatibility. though to this a few stand out games like the best version of joust and a new IP called Crash Bandicoot released late in it's life. here are the specs.

Release Date	August 18, 1981 (NA) March 7, 1982 (EU)
Cost	249.99 at launch
Specs	Basically a 400 with 4 kB of memory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_8-bit_family#Design
Games Released	300 officially by 1989
Sales	3.66 Million total (NA and EU)
Backwards Combability	Atari 2600 (normally) and Atari 400 (though add ons)
Lifespan	1981 - 1989

the next part of this chapter will be about the Fairchild Channel F, Fairchild Ultravision; then it will be the Magnavox Odyssey 2, Odyssey 3, and the Mattel Intellivision.

edit: fixed and added some text with the Atari 5200 and Warner Bros reason to not buy Atari. fixed the Atari 2600 dates too. changed what you'll see next chapter; going to be focused on Fairchild. added text about add-ons for the 5200.
New Edit: Retconned Sony buying Atari in 1992. something else changes now.

 

[MemphisC]

this is part two of four talking about the Fairchild Channel F and Ultravision.

Fairchild Channel F​

Console design​

The Fairchild channel F was the first of the Second Generation home consoles released in September of 1976. created by Fairchild Semiconductors, Jerry Lawson, and his team. The Fairchild channel F was an very important and fairly successful console for its time; inspiring the Atari 2600 and all the rest of the major players and everything afterwards. this pretty much killed all the Pong-soles coming out during this time. for $199.99 in 1976; it was a good deal and for a year it was the top of the town. until Atari announced and then subsequently released in 1977. this would cause a short war against Fairchild and Atari that lasted from 1977 - 1979. Fairchild put up a good fight and released some great games with the limited hardware but by 1979; they saw that they could not compete with all the new competitors coming out like Nintendo NES, Magnavox Odyssey, and Mattel Intellivision and sold their Fairchild Division to Zircon International and they kept it alive till 1984 when it was fully discontinued. Jerry Lawson and all his team would be fired from Fairchild and would Move on to Atari and then in 1985 Jerry Lawson would start a new company called Videosoft that will be pretty important later on.

the importance of the Fairchild channel F can not be understated as it was one of the most important consoles of it's time due to creating the cartridge concept and helping to start the second generation. here are the specs.

Release Date	September 1976 (NA) 1977 (EU & JP)
Cost	$199.99 at launch
Specs	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Channel_F#Technical_specifications
Games Released	around 200 by 1984
Sales	around 4 Million by 1984 (Worldwide)
Lifespan	1976-1984 (NA) 1977-1984 (EU & JP)

Fairchild Ultravision Video Arcade System​

Console Design
​

Fairchild's Reintroduction into the console industry was a ballsy move for Fairchild Semiconductor but it made some Sense as they had decent success with the Fairchild till they gave up in 1979. in 1981 they developed a powerful CPU and VDP called Big Ben for the CPU and the Analytical Engine for the VDP. Fairchild tried to sell the chipset to companies like Atari, Intel, and Apple; but all declined. the only two showed Interest for the chipset were Ultravision who wanted to develop games for it and Texas Instruments who wanted to use it for a true 16 bit computer and a home console. development started on the Ultravision in late 1981 and was finished in 1983 right before CES. the CES 1983 show was surprisingly well as the people were impressed with the power of the Big Ben CPU and the impressive looking games that gave the also shown early SNES prototypes and arcade stuff a run for their money. but the price of the console was almost 800 dollars; though this was because it was also a home computer and had a Television built into the system. when it came out in October 1983 for 799.99; it initially did okay and then completely dropped off because of the Video Game Crash of 1983. this would be the biggest failure of Fairchild and this would made them bankrupt in late 1984 after Texas Instruments Computer quit it contract with Fairchild after disagreements with Texas Instuments percentage of the profits being too low for them. after this happened Fairchild was Bought out by RCA and the Ultravision was discontinued in January 1985. the Ultravision Game Company also shut down by 1985 due to the failure of the system and the video game crash.

it's main legacy today would be that of failure and massive ambitions that were never reached. it was only released in North America due to the failure of the system. it was also known for being super impressive for the time but being a bastard to develop for due to the architecture being very foreign to most developers and the 2 VDPs having weird RAM relationships and the Mathematical Engine being added late in development (like OTL Sega Saturn). here are the specs.

Release Date	October 18, 1983
Lifespan	1983 - 1985
Cost	$799.99 at launch
CPU	Big Ben (16-bit, 4 MHz)
Developers	Fairchild Semiconductor, Texas Instruments
Manufacturers	Fairchild
VDPs	Analytical Engine (12-bit, 2.5 MHz) Mathematical Engine (15-bit, 3.66 MHz)
RAM	32 KB of Main RAM 32 KB of VDP RAM (Shared) 16 KB of Sound RAM
Media	Cartridge (up to 64KB) Cassette and Floppy Disk (up to 195 KB)
Graphics Mode	Bitmap Mode only
Sprites	32 Maximum (4 colors) 64 (8 colors)
Color palate	64 colors
Resolution	anywhere from 160 x 120 to 320 x 240
Sound chip	2x General Instrument AY-3-8910
Amount of Games	86 officially released by 1985
Backwards compatibility	Atari 2600, Intellivision, Channel F, and TI-99 4/A via Adaptors
Amount Sold	about 100,000 by 1985

next part of this chapter will be about the Odyssey 2 and 3. then the ColecoVision, Astrocade, Intellivision, SG-1000, Vetrex, Microvision, and the RCA studio II. and then the final chapter will be about all the minor consoles that came out that generation from 1976-1983. and we will talk about the Crash of 1983.

edit: added the price to the specs of the Fairchild Ultravision.

 

[MemphisC]

This chapter will be about the Magnavox Odyssey 2, 3, Mattel Intellivision, ColecoVision, Bally Astrocade, Sega SG-1000, Vetrex, Microvision, and the RCA Studio II.

​

Magnavox Odyssey 2/ Philips Videopac​

Console design plus controllers​

The Magnavox Odyssey 2 is the true successor to the first ever video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey created by legend Ralph Baer (not the Magnavox 100 pong-sole series). made by Phillips and Magnavox; this was one of first major contenders to show up after the success of Fairchild Channel F and especially the Atari 2600. It was a major success in parts of Europe and Brazil but completely failed in Japan and did only okay in America but in total being third place in the second generation only behind the Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom and the Atari 2600. It was the first major attempt to have Computer functions on a home console and it lasted from 1978 till 1987 in some parts of Brazil. Its biggest contribution to gaming was with one of its most well known games that was released on it called KC Munchkin that helped set copyright laws for video games in the future. It also saw some of the first European developers like Ultimate play the Game and Rally release some of its first licensed third party games on the Magnavox Odyssey 2.

Release Date	September 1978 (NA) November 1978 (EU & PAL) September 1981 (JP)
Cost	$179.99 at launch
Specs	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnavox_Odyssey_2#Technical_specifications
Games Released	142 by 1987
Amount Sold	7.6 Million by 1987 (WW) 5.6 Million (EU & PAL) 1.8 Million (NA) 200,000 (JP)
Lifespan	1978 - 1985 (NA) 1978 - 1986 (EU) 1978 - 1987 (PAL) 1981-1983 (JP)

Magnavox Odyssey 3​

Console Design plus controllers​

The Sequel to the Odyssey 2 and released only in Europe and America in late 1982. it was supposed to be a major improvement over the somewhat limited Magnavox Odyssey 2 and it did succeed in doing that and it did have support from Rally and the newly bought Seymour Corporation. it had a significantly better keyboard compared the Odyssey 2, it had a better controller than the Odyssey, the Graphics were much better, it had much better sound and actual speech capabilities than the predecessor, it was backwards compatible, and it was a fully blown computer with access to cassette and Disk drives by plugging them in to the expansion port. The problem with the Odyssey 3 was that it was not comparable to the ColecoVision and the other consoles coming out in 1982; it was comparable in many ways to the NES and Intellivision that were released in 1978/1979. This was a massive issue for the Odyssey 3 as it was priced around the same as the ColecoVision and was worse in every way so the ColecoVision made this console a hard sell. and the video game crash of 1983 killed any chances of success and forced Phillips for a little bit to be out of gaming for a bit until the release of the Phillips CDI in 1988.

Release Date	August 16, 1982 (NA & EU)
Lifespan	1982 - 1985 (NA) 1982 - 1986 (EU)
Amount Sold	around 750,000 by 1986
Cost	$199.99 at launch
Backwards Compatibility	Yes (all Magnavox Odyssey 2 games and accessories)
Developers	Magnavox/Phillips, Intel
Manufacturers	Intel, Magnavox/Phillips
CPU	Intel 8048 (8-bit; 5.91 MHz)
VDP	Intel 8245
RAM	16 KB of Main RAM 8 KB of V-RAM 24KB of S-RAM
Media	Cartridge (32 KB Maximum) Cassette and Floppy Disks (64 KB Maximum)
Graphics Modes	Bitmap and Tile Graphics
Sprites	8 sprites maximum (2 colors)
Color palate	32 maximum colors
Resolution	320 x 238
Sound Chip	General Instrument AY-3-8910, TMS6100 (used for speech)
Other Features	Chess unit added extra power to allow the Magnavox to play chess effectively, similar to the Intellivision.
Add-ons	Disk Drive and Cassette Drives
Amount of Games	67 by 1986

Mattel Intellivision​

Console Design​

The Mattel Intellivision was Mattel's first major video game attempt aside from Mattel Auto Race released in 1976 (one of the first handheld video games ever made). Released in 1979 in the United States; it was a major improvement compared to the Atari 2600 and Fairchild Channel F and started a trend for video game consoles to have phone pads on their controllers this generation. Being highly expandable and heavily marketed in the United States made this system a decent hit. It had a ton of add-ons released for it like the Intellivoice for games like B-17 Bomber in 1981 and the ECS in 1983 that turned the Intellivision into a full blown Computer. the Intellivision lasted for a while and Intellivision seemed to be a big player in the Video Game Industry for years to come. this did not happen as the crash of 1983 happened and it killed most of Mattel's ambition plus the failure of the ECS and the home computer the Mattel Aquarius just killed everything that Mattel was developing including the Intellivision 3 (a true successor) and got out of the industry for good. though they would make some games and game accessories later on.

The legacy of this console was that it was another decent and successful console to come out during this era when everyone was making a console.

Release Date	1979 (NA) 1980 (EU) 1981 (PAL) 1982 (JP)
Cost	$249.99 at launch
Specs	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellivision#Master_Component_2
Games Released	168 by 1989
Amount Sold	5 Million by 1989 (WW) 3.5 Million (NA) 1.9 Million (EU & PAL) 100,000 (JP)
Add-ons/Expansions	Intellivoice: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellivoice) ECS: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_Computer_System)
Lifespan	1979 - 1989 (NA) 1980 - 1988 (EU) 1981 - 1992 (PAL) 1982 - 1984 (JP)

​

ColecoVision​

Console Design plus the controllers​

Coleco was a player in video games for a little bit creating the Telstar series of pong-soles and then the Coleco Telstar Arcade in 1977 (this will be mentioned next part). they stayed out of gaming for a while until coming back in 1982 with the ColecoVision and it was a big deal when it came out as it was one of the most powerful systems to come out this generation and for a price a good bit lower to Atari 5200 plus it can play 2600 games with an adaptor made it a very good deal for people who was interested into getting a new console. It did very well in the holiday season of 1982 and did even better in the first half 1983 until the VG crash caught up to ColecoVision and Coleco released the Adam in 1983. The Adam ITTL had most of its major problems fixed and it did very well in the Holiday Season of 1983. This was bad for the ColecoVision as this would mean that they would move over to the computer market and abandon the home console market entirely and in 1986 that is exactly what they did as they were releasing another home computer called the Chameleon and fully discontinued the ColecoVision worldwide.

Its legacy was that it had fantastic graphics for the time and it had great ports of less popular arcade games like Lady bug and Venture.

Release Date	August 1982 (NA) March 1983 (EU & PAL)
Cost	$199.99 at launch
Specs	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColecoVision#Hardware
Games Released	136 by 1986
Amount Sold	3.5 Million by 1986
Add-ons/Expansions	Module #1: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColecoVision#Atari_2600_expansion) Module #2: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColecoVision#Driving_controller) Module #3: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColecoVision#Adam_computer_expansion) Module #4: the Super Game Module actually releases ITTL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColecoVision#Unreleased)
Lifespan	1982 - 1986 (NA) 1983 - 1986 (EU)

​

Bally Astrocade​

Console Design plus the controllers​

The Bally Astrocade was the Neo Geo of the 1970's and released in November 1977. This was released right after the Atari 2600 and it was released before the 1977 Christmas Season. Developed by Bally/Midway and Dave Nutting Associates; it was the most powerful console for the first half of this generation with its sound capabilities and high sprite count. It could also be used as a simple computer with a BASIC cartridge. Bally Astrocade had some big heavy hitters on it like the best initial ports Wizard of Wor, Sinistar, Pac-Man, and Space invaders but this power came at a price that killed the console from truly competing with Atari 2600. The Bally Astrocade cost a crisp $299.99 at launch (over $1,500 dollars in 2024 dollars); this price meant that it could not compete with Atari 2600 as the 2600 was significantly more cheaper than the Astrocade and was the more popular option overall. The Astrocade did hold a niche for a long time as being the true arcade experience at home but this would later be eroded by the second half of the generation being similar and even more powerful than the Astrocade and the Market share started to drop, then the crash plunged it down like a cliff. Bally at this point was ready to be done with the Astrocade to focus on Multi-platform and Arcade games and killed the Astrocade in 1985.

Release Date	November 1977 (NA)
Cost	$299.99 at launch
Specs	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bally_Astrocade#Specifications
Games Released	64 by 1985
Amount Sold	1.1 Million by 1985
Lifespan	1977 - 1985

​

Sega SG-1000​

Console Design plus controllers​

Sega in 1982 was still owned by Gulf/Western and they partnered with Coleco to release the ColecoVision in Japan under the Sega brand with a custom V-RAM chip as the major difference along with the simpler controllers for the Japanese market. Sega in 1982 was pretty big as it was the second biggest video game company in Japan at this point and was a major home computer developer with the decently popular SC-3000. It also had Sega/Gremlin in America and made some big games like Zaxxon. in 1983 as the SG-1000 was being developed; Gulf/Western was going though very turbulent times and sold all of Sega to Hayao Nakayama and Sega Enterprises entirely for 300 million. This would set the events to come for Sega in the future to be a giant in the industry as now. but before they had massive success they had the SG-1000; based off of the ColecoVision with some major improvements it was a failure in the Japanese market because of the Famicom and then destroyed by the Super Famicom in 1984. This was expected by Sega and was working on multiple Home Console and Computer projects to go into the future. One was with the Enterprise 64 as Sega funded the system and released it as the Sega Enterprise 64 everywhere else in 1983 to decent success. Another project was with Sega making a 16-bit computer by buying the newly formed Amiga Corporation to create the Sega Amiga 1000 in 1985 to massive success. and the final project that was happening was developing a next generation home console in order to compete with the SNES/Super Famicom worldwide. This would be called the Sega Master System and it would be released worldwide in 1985.

The legacy of the Sega SG-1000 was laying the groundwork for the Sega that was to come.

Release Date	July, 1983 (JP)
Cost	$199.99 at launch
Specs	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SG-1000#Technical_specifications
Games Released	86 (compatible with Cartridge ColecoVision Games via Adaptor)
Amount Sold	900,000 by 1986
Lifespan	1983 - 1986

​

Vetrex​

Console plus the controllers​

This will be pretty short: the Vetrex was the First and only console to ever use Vector Displays for the graphics. created by Milton Bradley and released in 1982. It was a Niche console designed for games that used vector displays and mastered them to a tee. It was also the first to have a light pen and 3d available games on it. It was a pretty big failure due to the limitations of the Vector display and the Video Game Crash of 1983 and finally made Milton Bradley leave out of gaming forever.

Release Date	November 1982 (NA) 1983 (JP & EU)
Cost	$199.99 at launch
Specs	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectrex#Technical_specifications
Games Released	32 by 1984
Amount Sold	around 700,000 by 1984
Add-ons	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectrex#Peripherals
Lifespan	1982 - 1984 (NA) 1983 - 1984 (JP & EU)

​

MB Microvision​

The console design
​

This will be pretty short also: the Microvision created by Milton Bradley was released in 1978 and was the first Handheld game console and influenced the Nintendo Game and Watch to exist. it had cartridges but in a way that every piece of tech aside from the screen and controls can be swapped when you get a new game. It was a decent success during the late 1970's and early 1980's and then was discontinued when Milton Bradley got out of the video game industry in 1984.

Release Date	March 1978 (NA) October 1978 (Everywhere else)
Cost	$69.99 at launch
Specs	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microvision#Technical_specifications
Amount of Games	24 by 1984
Amount sold	1.3 Million by 1984
Lifespan	1978-1984 (WW)

​

RCA Studio II​

RCA started development on the RCA studio II in 1977 after the success of the Fairchild Channel F and since RCA ITTL never sold its computer division; they developed a new variant of the CDP chip for a video game console and a chipset ready for a home console. when it was released in 1980; it was an okay piece of tech for the time, did okay, and was just fine. and it would eventually die in 1985 due to the crash and they never came back fully, but they did something surprising ITTL; they survived and would thrive during the 80's and the future. RCA would survive ITTL by having most of its major problems inside being fixed like its internal politics. They helped develop with JVC the VHS and created Selectavision (CED) that were major to decent successes, developing a bunch of new technologies, still owning NBC, and buying MCA/Universal and Fairchild in 1985. They will be pretty important in the future of TL as they do many things for the tech and entertainment but will not be focused on unless it is important to the chapter or when I talk about them at some points.

Release Date	August 1979 (NA only)
Lifespan	1979 - 1985
Amount Sold	around 1 Million by 1985
Cost	$249.99 at launch
Developers	RCA, Texas Instruments
Manufacturers	RCA
CPU	RCA CDP 2801 (4 MHz)
VDP	"HoloTron" (2 MHz)
RAM	2 KB (64KB with expansions)
Media	Cartridge (8 to 64 KB)
Graphics Modes	Bitmap mode only
Sprites	64 maximum (1 color only) 8 (2 colors)
Color Palate	16 maximum colors
Resolution	240 x 180
Sound Chip	Texas Instruments SN76489
Other Features	a custom Blitter chip allows for 64 one color sprites and backgrounds to load in quickly, similar to the Magnavox Odyssey II.
Add-ons	Game Expander: Atari 2600, Fairchild Channel F, Intellivision, and Odyssey via adaptors Laserdisc Module: allows for Laserdisc games. Computer Expansion: turned it into a computer with 64 KB of additional-RAM.
Controllers	similar to the Intellivision base controllers.
Games Released	100 by 1985

The next and the final part will be about all the minor consoles that came out this generation and finally the video game crash of 1983. After that we will talk about the Super Famicom/SNES, Nintendo's System 2 arcade board, the first generation of the Nintendo Namco Polygonizer, and Nintendo's media like Nintendo Power, Dynamo Pictures, and Super Comic Time.

edit: Retconned RCA making Laserdiscs and added SelectaVision to what they made.

 

[MemphisC]

this is the final chapter for the second generation and it will focused on all the others that i have very little to say. so here we go.

Emmerson's Arcadia 2001: same as OTL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_2001)
1292 Advanced Programmable Video System/ Interton Video Computer 4000: same as OTL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interton_Video_Computer_4000)
Bandai Super Vision 8000: same as OTL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandai_Super_Vision_8000
VTech CreatiVision: same as OTL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTech_CreatiVision)
Gakken Compact Vision TV Boy: same as OTL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gakken_Compact_Vision_TV_Boy)
Cassette Vision: same as OTL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassette_Vision)
APF-MP1000: did slightly better ITTL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APF-MP1000)
Coleco Telstar Arcade: counts as a second generation console ITTL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleco_Telstar_Arcade)
all the second generation handhelds aside from the Microvision and Game and Watch: Same as OTL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_generation_of_video_game_consoles#Handheld_systems)

next chapter will be about the video game crash and then these in order.
- Super Famicom / SNES
- How RCA Survived ITTL (In Detail)
- Super Mario Bros. ITTL
- Nintendo System 2 arcade hardware
- Nintendo Namco Polygonizer
- Nintendo Power and Super Comic Time
- Nintendo and Dynamo Pictures
- the Sega Master System and Atari 7800
- Crash Bandicoot (Atari 5200 & 7800)
- Atari's and Sega's New Arcade Hardware at this point

 

[MemphisC]

the Second Generation of Video Game Consoles was a very important era of gaming as it introduced many recognizable companies like Atari, Activision, Nintendo. Sega, and others onto the scene but almost suddenly in Late 1983; the entire game industry came to a crawl and what would be known as the Video Game Crash of 1983 happened and everything went to hell for the video game industry. i will tell you what happened, the results, and how it ended.

How It Started:

E.T. on Atari 2600
​

Many of the same things that caused the Crash IOTL would happen like oversaturation of consoles, low quality of most software released, XXX software, personal computer getting very popular and overload of new software companies brought the gaming industry down to a crawl. it didn't help that Atari was banking that E.T. the video game to be a smash hit by making almost 20 million cartridges for the holiday season of 1982 and only for it to bomb very badly due to the game being a glitchy broken mess and Atari had to bury a bunch of it in a desert in New Mexico. another thing that happened was the crash of the Arcades cabinet sales where Arcades older game cabinets couldn't be sold off and they bought less machines during this time to recoup for lost profits. this decimated American arcades particularly that would last till some new federal transportation laws in the late 80's and fighting games reinvigorated American arcades back up again.

The Results​

The Results of the crash depended in which region you resided in; the Crash did universally show up in the same general months; October/November 1983.

In Japan; the Crash was barely felt due to the Nintendo Seal of Quality and not as many players in consoles or games meant that they did completely fine, the Video Game Crash only lasted 13 months in Japan from November 1983 to December 1984.

In Europe; it was the longest lasting but was still not as bad as in America; Most Gamers do still move on to Computers like the Atari ST, Sega Amiga, ZX Spectrum, Spectrum Vega, Commodore 64, 128, and XT ITTL. it will take till the early to mid 90's for Home Consoles to get popular again.

In America; it was easily the worst as almost 85% of the market in the U.S. dried up due to it being the most oversaturated out of all. there was also a new national hearings about games like Custer's Revenge and all the XXX games being on the 2600. and Atari got dragged around the bus due to allowing games to be on the 2600. these hearings would create the ESRB in late 1984 to rate every game for now on. during this crash we saw the most game companies crumbled due to the crash like Centuri Electronics and almost everyone console manufacturer aside from Atari, Nintendo, and Sega just left completely from the industry. while the Crash was pretty bad; some companies that didn't survive IOTL actually did ITTL like Nolan Bushnell's Atari, Stern Electronics, Rally Manufacturing, Seymour Corp, Exidy, RDI Video Systems, and Gremlin Industries (a division of Sega).

How it Ended​

it ended for three specific reasons: One was the development of Rating Boards that pretty much got rid of most XXX games in general (Aside from Japan), the Seal of Quality that Nintendo pioneered that got rid of many shovel ware titles and unlicensed games, and the impeding release of the next generation of Consoles; the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sega Master System, and the Atari 7800 gave people hope and helped save the industry and bring it back better than ever. but that is a topic for the next chapter about the Super Nintendo Entertainment System/Super Famicom.

Large list of the upcoming chapters:
Next: The Super Famicom/SNES
Upcoming: How RCA Survived ITTL (In Detail)
- Super Mario Bros. ITTL
- Nintendo System 2 Arcade hardware
- Nintendo Namco Polygonizer
- Nintendo Power and Super Comic Time
- Nintendo and Dynamo Pictures
- the Sega Master System and Atari 7800
- Crash Bandicoot (1986; Atari 5200 & 7800)
- Atari's and Sega's New Arcade Hardware at this point
- Warner Bros and Nintendo Partnership (1985)
- Sonic the Hedgehog (1988)
- Sega Amiga 1000 and Sega's Computers
- The Super Mario Bros Movie (1988)

Edit: Added RDI Video Systems to the Companies the survive the video game crash ITTL.

 

[MemphisC]

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) / Super Famicom​

the OG SNES design with the original controllers (First), Top Loader variant with the dog bone controller (Second), the OG Super Famicom design (Middle), ROB the Robot (Fourth), and the NES Zapper (Fifth)​

"It was the holidays of 1984 in Japan, the NES was still selling very well throughout the year with new ports of Fix-It Felix Jr., Q-Bert, Jr. Pac Man, and Sinistar were selling very well. Nintendo's recent manga book called Sūpākomikkutaimu (Super Comic Time in English) was selling very well and received very well by critics too. A new division called Dynamo Pictures was formed as a movie and television creating division of Nintendo to create media based on Osamu Tezuka's and Nintendo's properties. Everything was good and it got even better in Christmas 1984 where many Japanese kids everywhere would open up their presents to see that the Next generation of Nintendo consoles had arrived. Bringing the power from the arcades into the arcade along with unique experiences that the arcade couldn't do like Super Mario Bros. as people were playing the Super Famicom with Super Mario Bros and the fantastic port of Donkey Kong, many say a specific phase that was said in the promotional material for, "Now you're playing with power; SUPER POWER!"

The Super Famicom (Codename "Mario") released in 1984 in Japan and 1985 everywhere else as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System; it was an absolute smash hit worldwide and the undisputed champion of the Third Generation of Home Consoles having a 70% percent share worldwide. there were many reasons for the consoles massive success; the first reason that the competition in home consoles was mostly gone and the ones that lived like Atari was not doing to well at all, so when Nintendo Announced their Next generation consoles in 1983, Atari scrambled to create a next generation home console to compete with the Nintendo that ended with the Atari 7800 being created that did not live up to expectations. Sega also was developing their next generation console shortly before the Super Famicom was first shown off and it went into high gear after it was shown off, but by the time Sega released the master system it was almost a year after the Super Famicom Released and then released a fair bit later in America and Europe; Sega's 8-bit console fate was sealed by launch and lost to Nintendo badly. the second reason that the Super Famicom was successful was Nintendo made developers signed contracts that if a developer makes a game for the SNES, they can only make games for the SNES, this made the SNES a monopoly and really the only option if you want to have a successful game during the 8-bit era; by 1988, the U.S. and Japanese Government forced Nintendo with the help of hefty fines to stop this practice entirely to stop any sort of monopolies from happening in the gaming but the damage was already done and Nintendo dominated this generation with pretty much no competition. The third reason that the super Famicom succeeded was with the seal of quality, ESRB, and lockout chips making the amount of shovelware decreased by a large portion for a long time until the end of the SNES life. a smaller reason but a good reason that it did well was ROB made early SNES look more like a toy than a game console and this vital for the early American success of the SNES. and the final reason that it successful was the games on the system were generally the best and highest quality games of the third generation like the Megaman games, Castlevania, Legend of Zelda 1 & 2, the Super Mario Bros, Trilogy, Double Dragon and much more that made this system such a smash hit.

the SNES however could not live forever as by the late 80's, the times were changing as the next generation of the consoles were showing like the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and the NEC PC-Engine. This started to take share away from the SNES and Nintendo knew that they needed a new console to compete with the influx of 16-bit consoles coming out. in 1989 and 1990; Nintendo released the Ultra Famicom/UNES (will be important for later) and Nintendo was slowly drawing support away from the SNES but do it very slowly as the SNES/Super Famicom was discontinued in 1995 in Japan and America and 1996 in Europe as Nintendo kept giving the SNES games up till late 1994 to give poorer customers something to do with the SNES.

The legacy of the SNES was invaluable to the revitalization of gaming, marking the end of the video game crash of 1983, and making the gaming industry even bigger than ever before. It was the first time that Backwards compatibility was available on a Nintendo platform as the SNES/Super Famicom can play all NES/Famicom games plus accessories out of the box. It was the first time that Nintendo's gaming division started splitting into different divisions to focus on RnD, Technologies, Games, Controllers, and many more for specific games. It also created many of Nintendo's Biggest IPs (all the same IPs as the ones that were introduced on the NES IOTL), good games based on all of Nintendo's Manga rights, and cemented Mario as Nintendo's biggest IP. Here are the specs.

SPECS:​

Release Date	November 1984 (JP) March 1985 (NA) October 1985 (EU)
Lifespan	November 1984 - August 1995 (JP) March 1985 - July 1995 (NA) October 1985 - March 1996 (EU)
Amount Sold	around 70 million (by 1996)
Cost	around $199 at launch (top loader model costed $99 at launch)
Developers	Nintendo, Intel, MOS Technology, Ricoh
Manufacturers	Nintendo and Intel
CPU	MOS 6506 (8 Bit, 1.79 MHz) Intel 8065 (8 bit, 2 MHz) for backwards compatibility
VDP	Mario chip (8/16 bit, 1.5 MHz)
RAM	16 kB base RAM 64 kB/256 kB with add-ons
Media	Cartridge: (up to 64 kB; much more with bank switching, biggest game got up to 2MB) Floppy Disk (add-on): (256 kB per side, 512 kB on both sides) Laserdisc (add-on): (LV-ROM; 500 MB per side; 1 GB on a single disc)
Graphic Modes	Bitmap and Tile Graphics
Sprites	4 to 32 sprites (4 to 16 colors) 8 on each scanline; 64 (2 colors)
Color Palate	up to 256 colors (some techniques can push up to 380)
Resolution	240 x 160 (some techniques got the resolution higher)
Sound Chip	Ricoh AY3 (6 PSG and FM channels; similar capabilities to OTL NES sound chip and the C64 SID chip with FM support) Ricoh AY1: additional 2 PSG and FM channels (Add-on) Laserdisc audio: (Add-on)
Other Features	can do some scrolling, mix of C64 and NES OTL capabilities wise
Add-ons	Famicom/NES Disk System: (1986) Famicom BASIC: (1986) Famimodem: (1988) Famicom/NES Laserdisc module: (1988)
Controllers	same as OTL
Backwards Compatibility	NES (Fully backwards compatible with games, add-ons, and accessories)
Amount of Games Released	over 1400 officially licensed (1996) much more unlicensed and bootlegs

A large list of the upcoming chapters for the TL:
Next: How RCA Survived ITTL (In Detail)
Upcoming:
- Super Mario Bros. video game (1984)
- The Sega Master System and Atari 7800 (1984 & (1985)
- Nintendo System 2 Arcade hardware (1985)
- Nintendo Namco Polygonizer (1985)
- Nintendo Power and Super Comic Time (1985)
- Nintendo Dynamo Pictures (1985)
- Super NES/Famicom Disk System, Famicom BASIC, Famimodem, and Laserdisc System (add-ons)
- Some New Video game companies that exist ITTL by 1988
- Crash Bandicoot (1986; Atari 5200 & 7800)
- Atari's and Sega's New Arcade Hardware at this point (1986)
- Warner Bros and Nintendo Partnership (1985)
- Sonic the Hedgehog (1988)
- Sega Amiga 1000 and Sega's other Computers (1980's)
- The Super Mario Bros Movie; Warner Bros and Dynamo Pictures (1988)
- Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3 ITTL (1987 and 1989)
- Nintendo TV shows by 1989
- Nintendo Arcade Neptune Platform (1988)

edit: changed the specs of the SNES with the Laserdiscs.

 

[MemphisC]

Super Mario Bros.​

Super Mario Bros. Commercial from late 1984 in Japan; credit goes to https://www.youtube.com/@TheGamesFather
​

The Launch of the Super Famicom in Japan and in North America and euro as the SNES was a very important one in gaming history as it ushered in the end of the video game crash of 1983 and entered in a new age of gaming that would be bigger and better than any other time before then in gaming. The successful launch everywhere was due to many reasons and one of them was the games. the games at launch that contributed to its success was the good ports of DK1, DK JR., and DK3, Duck Hunt, Radar Scope III, Fix it Felix Jr., Gyromite, ports of Namco, Midway, and Hudson Soft classics and the most important of them all that cemented a certain plumber duo as Nintendo's de-facto mascots. This game was Super Mario Bros. for the Super Famicom and SNES.

Super Mario Bros. released in November 14, 1984 along with the launch of Super Famicom, then March 4, 1985 in the United States with the American launch and October 21, 1985 with the European launch and it was a critical and financial darling worldwide. The game was a launch title and pack-in with most SNES's at the time and was a significant improvement to most other platformers that came out during the second generation consoles. the marketing of the game was also great due to the relatively massive marketing budget of 1.5 Million for Super Mario Bros., large amount of promotional material, high mascot appeal, and the high critical reception made this game be one of the most successful games ever at the time; selling almost 50 million cartridges worldwide (20 in America, 15 million in Japan, 10 million in Europe, and 5 million in other territories). this single game established Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Donkey Kong, and the Toads as gaming icons and replaced Saberman as Nintendo Main Mascot platformer; this caused Sega, Atari, and other companies to scramble to create mascots in order to compete with Mario. This led up to Atari creating Crash Bandicoot and Banjo the bear (completely different than later Rare ware's Banjo Kazooie) in 1986 and Sega creating Alex the Kidd in 1986 and then Sonic the Hedgehog in 1988/1989. Mario would have a massive impact in the industry with this game and the many Mario games, comics, manga, tv shows, movies, and spin-offs to come out after 1985 and will usher in a new era of Nintendo IP's that will set them up as the king of gaming during this time in the mid and late 80's though it would change with the start of the fourth generation in 1987.

TTL's Super Mario Bros. game is not much different from OTL's Super Mario bros but does have two differences compared to OTL. One is that enemies like Fire (DK1), Spark (DK JR), Fighter Fly, Freezie, Sidesteppers (MB), and Donkey Kong himself as a boss are in the game. The second difference is that there is actual multiplayer as Mario and Luigi can play in true multiplayer platformer action while also having the take turns mode of multiplayer like OTL.

List of upcoming chapters:
1. The Sega Master System and Atari 7800 (1984 & 1985) (two part)
2. Nintendo System 2 Arcade hardware (1985)
3. Nintendo Namco Polygonizer (1985)
4. Nintendo Power and Super Comic Time (1985)
5. Nintendo Dynamo Pictures (1985)
6. Super NES/Famicom Disk System, Famicom BASIC, Famimodem, and Laserdisc System (add-ons)
7. New Gaming Companies that exist ITTL
8. RCA's Revitalization in the late 70's and 80's (how RCA survives ITTL)
9. Crash Bandicoot and Banjo the Bear (1986; Atari 5200 & 7800)
10. Other Companies Arcade Hardware up till this point (1986)
11. The Start of a Warner Bros and Nintendo Partnership (1985)
12. Sonic the Hedgehog (1988/1989)
13. Sega Amiga 1000 and Sega's other Computers (1980's)
14. The Super Mario Bros Movie; Warner Bros and Dynamo Pictures (1988)
15. Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3 ITTL (1987 and 1989)
16. the first batch of Nintendo TV shows (1986 - 1989)
17. Nintendo and Warner Bros. create a cable channel: called TOONSTAR (1989)
18. Nintendo Arcade Neptune Platform (1988)
19. Turner and Viacom gut MTV Networks (1988)
20. The Computer Industry during this time (Atari, Commodore, Texas Instruments, NEC, Coleco, IBM, Fujitsu , Amstrad, Sinclair, Apple, SGI, and Cray) (1980's)
21. The Start of the fourth generation: NEC PC Engine/Turbografix-16 (1987/1988)
22. Fourth Generation: Sega Genesis/Mega Drive (1988/1989)
23. Fourth Generation: NEC Super Grafx 16 (1990/1991)
24. Fourth Generation: Nintendo Ultra Famicom/UNES (1989/1990)
25. Fourth Generation: Atari Panther (1990/1991)
26. Fourth Generation: SNK Neo Geo MVS AES (1989/1990)

edit: fixed some errors in the first and second paragraphs.

 

[MemphisC]

Atari 7800​

The Atari 7800 Console plus it's main controller; the Gamepad (also compatible with 2600 and 5200 controllers as well)
​

The Atari 7800 was Atari's main console during the third generation and it was a mixed one both commercially and critically. The development of the Atari 7800 started shortly after the Atari 5200 in 1982. development was pretty slow during the first year of development but ramped up considerably when all hell broke loose with the gaming crash of 1983 that crumbled the market share of the 5200 and Atari lost almost 1 billion dollars during the crash and Atari needed a new console out by 1984 to compete better with Nintendo that at hard work on their next generation platform; the Super Famicom/SNES. Atari started to scramble to make a platform as quickly as possible with some help from Bandai and Texas Instruments to release it worldwide without the financial backing of Warner Bros.

When the Atari 7800 released on October 21, 1984 in America and Europe and then March 19, 1985 in Japan; it was the first of the third generation consoles to release in America and Europe and the first competitor to the Super Famicom in Japan. While for a bit it did have all the North American and European Market for a little while; they lost most of that share when the SNES and Sega Master System came over to America and Europe. it did admirably though in most regions as they gave a lot of effort to compete with Nintendo and Sega as they made ports of I, Robot with an early 3D accelerator chip in it, made two new IPs in the form of Crash Bandicoot and the Country Bears based game Banjo the Bear, and got Midway and Namco to put games on it. But even this did not save the Atari 7800 from the might of Nintendo SNES and put the console in third place during the console wars this generation. In Japan, Atari did not stand a chance from Nintendo and Sega and barely even sold in Japan. Atari started to focus mainly on their ST (codename Sierra) computer and their 3D hardware until giving another chance in the gaming industry in 1989 with the first 32 bit console; the Panther. The biggest problem with the Atari 7800 was that it was rushed to release in order to compete with SNES and the specs of the Atari 7800 were haphazardly thrown together last minute in order to rush it out before Nintendo came out that made a functional but limited console with some honestly baffling limitations that the SNES did not have like the sound chip or the RAM layout of the system, and it did have some games that showed the power of the 7800 but there were not many of them to speak about due to Nintendo's contract system they had and few developers decided to work with Atari. The biggest advantage it had was its backwards compatibly with the 2600 and 5200 library.

Also, the Atari XE Game System does exist ITTL but pretty much nothing changes about it ITTL.

Release Date	October 21, 1984 (NA & EU) March 19, 1985 (JP)
Lifespan	1984 - 1991 (NA) 1984 - 1993 (EU) 1985 - 1988 (JP)
Amount Sold	around 6 million (WW) 3.9 million (EU) 1.9 million (NA) 200,000 (JP)
Cost	$199.99 at launch
Developers	Atari, Texas Instruments, and Bandai
Manufacturers	Atari
CPU	Atari V6502 (8/16 bit, 2 MHz)
VDP	Atari "Eva" VDP (8 bit, 2 MHz)
RAM	8 kB (4 kB for main CPU functions; 4kB for everything else like the VDP and Sound Chip)
Media	Cartridges (up to 64 kB; higher with bank switching)
Graphic Modes	Bitmap Mode only
Sprites	up to 128 (one or two color) sprites, 64 (4 and 8 color) sprites
Color Palate	256 colors (advanced tricks and techniques can get up to 480 colors)
Resolution	320 x 240 (maximum)
Sound Chip	TIA interface chip and POKEY sound chip
Other Features	similar to Atari 7800 OTL
Controllers	the Atari 7800 gamepad and joystick (Backwards compatible with all 2600 and 5200 controllers)
Backwards Compatibility	yes, Atari 2600 and 5200
Amount of Games Released	around 250 (by 1993)

List of upcoming chapters:
1. The Sega Master System (1985)
2. Nintendo System 2 Arcade hardware (1985)
3. Nintendo Namco Polygonizer (1985)
4. Nintendo Power and Super Comic Time (1985)
5. Nintendo Dynamo Pictures (1985)
6. Super NES/Famicom Disk System, Famicom BASIC, Famimodem, and Laserdisc System (add-ons)
7. New Gaming Companies that exist ITTL by the mid 80's
8. RCA's Revitalization in the late 70's and 80's (how RCA survives ITTL)
9. Crash Bandicoot and Banjo the Bear (1986; Atari 5200 & 7800)
10. Other Companies Arcade Hardware up till this point (1986)
11. The Start of a Warner Bros and Nintendo Partnership (1985)
12. Sonic the Hedgehog (1988/1989)
13. Sega Amiga 1000 and Sega's other Computers (1980's)
14. The Super Mario Bros Movie; Warner Bros and Dynamo Pictures (1988)
15. Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3 ITTL (1987 and 1989)
16. the first batch of Nintendo TV shows (1986 - 1989)
17. Nintendo and Warner Bros. create a cable channel: called TOONSTAR (1989)
18. Nintendo Arcade Neptune Platform (1988)
19. Turner and Viacom gut MTV Networks (1988)
20. The Computer Industry during this time (Atari, Commodore, Texas Instruments, NEC, Coleco, IBM, MSX, Fujitsu, Amstrad, Sinclair, Apple, SGI, and Cray) (1980's)
21. The Start of the fourth generation: NEC PC Engine/Turbografix-16 (1987/1988)
22. Fourth Generation: Sega Genesis/Mega Drive (1988/1989)
23. Fourth Generation: NEC Super Grafx 16 (1990/1991)
24. Fourth Generation: Nintendo Ultra Famicom/UNES (1989/1990)
25. Fourth Generation: Atari Panther (1990/1991)
26. Fourth Generation: SNK Neo Geo MVS/AES (1989/1990)
27. Fourth Generation: Phillips CDI (1988/1989)
28. Nintendo Pluto Arcade Hardware (1991)
29. Sony Nintendo Deal and Nintendo Betrayal (1990)
30. Nintendo Namco Polygonizer 2, 3, and 4 (1987-1993)
31. Nintendo Game Boy (1988)
32. Sega Game Gear (1990)
33. Atari Lynx (1989)
34. an earlier E3 and Spaceworld (1986)
35. the 16-bit add-ons (early 1990's)

 

[MemphisC]

The Sega Master System (1985)​

The Sega master system (First), the logo of the Sega master system (second), Sega's MyCard (third), Sega Master System Cartridge (Fourth), and the Sega Phaser Light Gun (Fifth).​

The Sega Master System was Sega's second foray into the Home Console Industry after the SG-1000 and was significantly better equipped to fight against Nintendo than before. The Sega Master System started development in 1982 even before the SG-1000 released in the market in 1983; Development on the Sega Master System was relatively short as it only lasted 2 years thanks to the help of Motorola creating a custom Motorola 6800, A Zilog Z80, and a custom chipset for the Sega Master System and will have a great relationship with them later on for their hardware endeavors thank to their first time working together in the early 1980's. The Sega Master System however took a long to release due to three reasons; one was to lower the prices, two was to prepare for the best launch lineup possible with Alex the Kidd as their main mascot platformer for the system along with some good arcade ports as well, and three was to show that they meant business when they waited for Nintendo's release date in America and Europe to release it as a big (and in hindsight stupid) move against Nintendo. When the Sega Master System Releases in March 1985 in Japan and the United States and October 1985 everywhere else. In America, it did well and sold pretty well initially, but most of it dried up within a year and was never the same due to the lack of third party support and retailers not being very supportive of Sega this generation. the Best years for the Sega Master System would be 1985 due to being the launch year and 1989 as it got the most support and games due to Nintendo's Strategy of that time with the third parties being retired due to government intervention but by that happened it was too late and Sega needed to try again with another much more powerful platform if they had to stand another chance against Nintendo. In Japan, Same thing but worse due to Nintendo's massive Japanese support there. even though Sega fought long and hard in North America and Japan with some absolute great games on the Sega Master System, it was not enough against Nintendo's stranglehold they had on the gaming industry in the market at that time and Sega gave up in 1992 in favor of their next gen console, that is aside from Europe and PAL Territories. In Europe it did great and even better in places like Brazil due to Nintendo's Tardiness there and the focus Sega had in there which made PAL the one place where Nintendo lost in this generation and in Europe it was either Nintendo, Atari, or Sega as they had a majority share there and it was particularly vicious there in the third generation and would be even more later on. Finally, tech wise it was pretty comparable to the SNES and can do some things worse and better than the Super Nintendo Entertainment System/Super Famicom.

Market Shares of all major consoles this generation:​

​

Consoles:​	Nintendo SNES/Super Famicom​	Atari 7800/XE Games System​	Sega Master System​
North America​	75%​	10-12%​	13-15%​
Japan​	85%​	2%​	13%​
Europe and other Territories​	35%​	30%​	35%​

While it was considered a failure; it did help create some of the most popular game franchises for Sega started on the Sega Master System such as Alex The Kidd, Phantasy Star, ETC. Even Sonic The Hedgehog and Ristar saw some of their first appearances on the Sega Master System. Also this was the first example of Sega Buying Licenses to Popular Manga series like Dragon Ball, Disney IPs like Mickey, and Popular Movies from Paramount like Top Gun and the rights to create the home console Indiana Jones games; which would only increase in the subsequent generation when some major media corporation buys Sega in 1991 for 250 Million. But that is a story for another date; now here are the specs of the Sega Master System.

The Specs of the Sega Master System​

Release Date​	March 1985 (NA & JP) October 1985 (EU) PAL Released some time later
Lifespan​	1985 - 1992 (NA & JP) 1985 - 1997 (EU) 1985 - Today (Brazil)
Cost​	$199.99 at launch ($99.99 with the model II)
Developers​	Sega, Motorola
Manufacturers​	Sega, Motorola
Distributors​	Sega, Tectoy (Brazil)
Units Sold​	22 Million (WW) 14 Million (EU & PAL) 4.5 Million (NA) 3.5 Million (JP)
CPU​	Custom Motorola 6800 (8-bit, 3 MHz)
VDP​	Custom Motorola VDP "Kidd" (8-bit, 1.79 MHz)
Sound Chip​	Yamaha VDP PSG (SN76489), Yamaha YM2413
Other Chips​	Zilog Z80A (3.58 MHz) (used as a DSP and second CPU) Lockout Chips
RAM​	16 KB
V-RAM​	8 KB
S-RAM​	8 KB
Media​	Cartridge: (up to 128 KB; more with bank switching; biggest game was 2MB) Sega MyCard: (up to 64 KB; more with bank switching; biggest game was 1MB)
Graphics Modes​	Tile Mode Only
Sprites​	up to 64 sprites (2 or 4 colors)
Color Palate​	256 Colors (up to 512 with Advanced Techniques)
Resolution​	256 × 192
Other Features​	Same as OTL Master System
Controllers​	all same as OTL; the Master System's controller does have the same amount as the OTL NES controller
Backwards Compatibility​	Yes (SG-1000 games; only in Japan)
Games Released​	up to 800 officially licensed by 2000; much more unlicensed and bootlegged

Editor's Note: i Am not doing comprehensive lists of chapters anymore because it is too much and too rigid for any sudden changes and also i released it much later than expected.

Next chapters:
Nintendo System 1 Specs (1982)
Nintendo System 2 Arcade Hardware (1985)
Nintendo Namco Polygonizer and a building of massive partnerships with Nintendo (1985)