It was acceptable in the 80's...

In the 80’s the technology was made available to produce personal gaming software at low cost. This lead to experimentation with the new software, were new genres were created that have moulded the game industry up to the present day. In 1981 Donkey was created opening up the platform genre. Dragon slayer 2 is another influential game as it created the role playing genre that dominates in today’s market. In the early 80’s the most popular consoles were the commodore 64 and Apple 2. The commodore was fairly priced and allowed the user to plug in existing joysticks from there previous consoles to use.

In 1985 third generation consoles were introduced to the market the first were the Atari ST and the Commodore Amiga These consoles were milestones in the market as they both had 16bit processors. A year later the Nintendo NES was released. The console came with the game Super Mario Bros, and was an instant success. Due to the success of the NES, Nintendo were able to create titles such as “Legend of Zelda”, “Metal Gear” and “Final Fantasy” all of which have their own series that have carried through into the modern era. I own a Nes, that I believe has gone for a walkabout in the attic. Despite this could have still have hours of fun on Super Mario Bros 3 (Especially in the racoon suit) when the Ps2 was at the height of its power.
With the rising popularity of home gaming, arcade games started to suffer. Arcades started to close around the country due to people preferring to wait until the new arcade titles where available on console. Arcades did survived though due to a strong group of enthusiasts.

1989 saw the birth of the Mega drive, Game boy and a very handsome man in Northampton. It wasn’t until 1991 that the Mega drive became the market leader due to the release of Sonic the hedgehog. This coincided with the release of the Nintendo SNES. In 1993 Atari released the Jaguar as the start of the new 5th generation of consoles. The console flopped as it had next no games and was pulled later the next year. In the same year Sony released the Playstation and Sega released the Saturn…. A mistake some think.
Also at this time Arcade games made a brief comeback with the release of “Street fighter” and “Mortal Kombat” this was quickly crushed as the power houses put these titles onto their consoles.

The Playstation quickly dominated the market whilst we waited for the arrival of the N64 in 1996. The N64 was worth the wait though. In 1997 “Goldeneye” was put into production and the following year “Zelda: ocarina of time” was released. Easily two of the best games available, on this series of console. The downside of the N64 was that the games where put on cartridges. Yes, the games loaded quicker. But cartridges were more expensive to produce and couldn’t hold as much data as a CD. Due to this, some of Nintendo’s game publishers went elsewhere, most notably the final fantasy series.

This was another brief overview, of a period of time as old as myself. I hope it was bearable for all.