taffer

The news about the Nvidia Shield, Steam Box, Ouya, and whatever else is causing me to think one thing... the early 1980s when there was a glut of "me too" consoles being developed, and that was one of the causes of the industry crash in the mid 80s.

Guru Askew

It'll be more like the 90s where like 99% of people bought a Nintendo or a Sega and then you might have heard rumors of your cousin's neighbor in Omaha owning a Neo Geo.

fumanstan

These other systems don't seem to be coming out with the intention of really competing with the big ones, simply adaptations of existing PC and mobile markets.

foxdvd

in the past building a new system required companies to develop games for those systems. These new influx of systems are trying to take advantage of an existing game market place.

Rob V

The indie thing, high development and marketing costs are the root of this new evolution of consoles... That said, I do expect at least one major player *cough* Sony *cough* to exit the market after this next go-round.

JasonF

Spiderbite

Damn, I loved that stupid game.

kgrogers1979

I did too. I even liked the E.T. video game, but I was 4-5 years old then so I didn't know any better.

Jay G.

That Popeye game graphic mentions 5 different Atari systems. Looking them up, they look to be a mix of console and "home computer" systems, but that still seems like too many systems from one manufacturer.

Interesting to note that the Popeye game was developed by Nintendo for the arcade, back before they had released the NES.

As others have pointed out, the new "consoles" aren't really fracturing the market as much as the 1980s consoles did, since they're leveraging existing software markets. The "Steam Box" is just a PC in a console-like form factor, and will play PC games. Many PC players already have a sizable Steam library, and the "cross-plaform" capabilities of, say, playing a game on the box at home, then playing on a laptop while traveling (or even on a desktop at home while the TV is in use), could prove a bonus.

OUYA and the Shield are just Android devices at their core. The Shield even has the Google Play store, meaning that owners will be able to shift between playing on The Shield and their phone, or even migrating to a new device later on. Developing games for these systems won't be the same as having to create for 8 very different hardware systems, like in the 80s.

RocShemp

I still have it (and E.T. ) with my old Atari 2600. I feel like playing it now.

starseed1981

Gosh I miss Colecovision.

Rob V

Still play Popeye (and Burger Time) regularly on my MAME cabinet

kgrogers1979

The Donkey Kong arcade was 1981. It was ported to the Atari 2600 as well. The Mario Bros arcade was 1983 (not to be confused with the later more popular Super Mario Bros in 1985) and it was ported to the Atari 2600 too. Yeah, that's right, there was a Mario game on the Atari...