Glossary Entry: Nintendo hard
Quick Definition
The Nintendo Entertainment System was one of the first major home consoles. The industry as a whole was still undergoing growing pains and trying to find its footing, and as a result, many of the games that were released for this system were extremely difficult and unforgiving.
This is just speculation, but I suspect that part of the reason for this is because the industry was attempting to use an old formula in a new setting. Before home consoles became popular, video games were primarily owned by arcades or other businesses. These games made their money by having the player pay a few cents for each attempt they made. Thus, if a game was fun to play but easily lost, the owner of the arcade machine would make a larger profit as people would have to start over frequently.
However, this approach doesn't really work with games people have at home. Any profit made on home video games would be made when the game was sold, so there was no reason to design games to be so difficult. The industry simply needed time to adapt to their new setting, and it would take another console generation for this to happen.
This is just speculation, but I suspect that part of the reason for this is because the industry was attempting to use an old formula in a new setting. Before home consoles became popular, video games were primarily owned by arcades or other businesses. These games made their money by having the player pay a few cents for each attempt they made. Thus, if a game was fun to play but easily lost, the owner of the arcade machine would make a larger profit as people would have to start over frequently.
However, this approach doesn't really work with games people have at home. Any profit made on home video games would be made when the game was sold, so there was no reason to design games to be so difficult. The industry simply needed time to adapt to their new setting, and it would take another console generation for this to happen.
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