The gaming system wars started long before the battle between Sega and Nintendo, but it was the 16-bit era that pitched the computing (Atari ST and Amiga 500) and console (Sega Mega Drive and SNES) giants against one another.
These bitter system wars waged on (Ed: they are still simmering!) between ST/Amiga owners and their Mega Drive/SNES console counterparts, both sides arguing that their system was best. Declaring a winner was always fraught with danger, especially when the battle turned to the technical specifications front.
When gamers use the hypothetical capabilities (specs) of their chosen machine instead of presenting hard evidence (Ed: like the actual games!) to argue their point, it descends the debate into the realm of the potential – the ‘what if’ scenario! As we know, you can’t play potential! Most machines have untapped potential and could definitely produce better games than what we’d seen from them, but that does not count unless you are about to create the next best homebrew game.
So gamers, a battle between systems should never be about what they can do, just what they did do. It’s great to think about the ‘what may have been‘ scenario, but all that will do is make you bitter and twisted – just enjoy what there is on offer, as there is plenty of variety out there for even the most discerning gamers. Oh yeah, none of these machines are as good as the PC-Engine anyway! *winks*
image source: supplied
Celebrating their 30 years in business, Stern Pinball Inc. is being quite active on their social media channels, releasing interesting facts about pinball. One that stood out to us was the unreleased 1990 pinball table based on the Total recall movie. Apparently, the Total Recall rare prototype never made it into production. Stern go on to say that “Designed to be a dual player team effort machine, it was ultimately scrapped for production and sent to the depths of the Data East factory. Sometime between 1996 and 2000 the machine “mysteriously disappeared”. Some say it went into the trash, some say it was broken down and forgotten. Some say that the machine made its way to places unknown and anyone who sees it in person is sworn to secrecy. No one knows for sure, and if they do, they aren’t talking.
source: Stern Pinball Inc.
Remember when Prince sang about partying like it was 1999? What do you mean no? Ah, you youngsters wouldn’t know a good song if it bit you on the bum. I am all out of sorts now, where was I? Oh yeh, partying like it was 1999! Well, if you were getting over a decent Christmas and new year’s break in January 1999, you may have been chilling out in front of your TV playing some Tekken 3 on your Playstation, or perhaps F-Zero X on your Nintendo 64.
Long before Walter Day established his Twin Galaxies scoreboard and way before eSports were created, there were video games competitions taking place all over North America, with the first tournament staged in New York City in 1980 by Atari. The First National Space Invaders Competition proved quite popular with 10,000 participants, with regional events taking place in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Fort Worth, Chicago, and New York City. The tournament had widespread print and television coverage, ensuring that the video gaming craze reached the masses.
Ms. ausretrogamer
Rewind the clock 18 years to December 1997 and take a gander at what the top games were on the Saturn, Playstation and PC. Surprised? Well, you shouldn’t be. The Christmas games charts were always a great barometer of the types of games that we were going to see more of in the coming new year. Suffice to say, the iterative annual sports titles (your FIFAs and Maddens), including driving games (Formula 1), were always going to play their part in the charts.
2015 has been a year of major gaming and tech anniversaries, from 
To help celebrate Super Mario Bros. 30th anniversary (released in Japan on 13 September 1985), 
