Alternate Consoles and Videogames Thread

Just like in the Alternate States Threads, Alternate Parties Threads or Alternate Movies Threads, all you have to do is posting an ATL console, ATL videogame or even an ATL company. The only limitation is, they have to be part of the same timeline.
 
A smarter Atari, or really a smarter video game industry as a whole, would make an interesting timeline. I'm not sure how realistic it would be to have all the lessons learned from the video game crash somehow be implemented (by chance?) by the late 70's video game producers.
 
Grundig Game2000

Analogue to their Video2000 project, German electronics manufacturer Grundig decided to start a video game project. The "Game2000" came out in 1980, to a price of 199DM (roughly 85$ today). Its technical abilities were up-to-date, and pretty soon the Game2000 competed against Atari in Europe. The Game2000 also got a good supply of software like the original Mario Bros., Donkey Kong or Pac-Man. These ports were considered to be far more superior than the Atari versions (Especially Pac-Man). This further helped to boost the sales in Europe, and thus Grundig decided to launch the Game2000 in overseas. But they partnered with Philips, because Grundig wasn't well known enough as a marque in markets like Asia or America. But there was also another problem. Philips had already its own console in North America, called the Magnavox Odyssey 2. So it was just released in Asia as the "Philips Game2000". The reception wasn't quite as good as in Europe, but it still sold respecatable numbers. So Grundig and Philips decided to launch the Game2000 in North America anyway. It was marketed as the "Magnavox Odyssey Light" and sold considerable numbers. Even as the Video Game Crash of 1983 occured, Philips and Grundig stood firm and kept selling the Odyssey Light. While they had to sink their prices, their console was a low-budget alternative for people who couldn't or didn't want to buy a home computer. Grundig also had tight control over who would develop games for them, avoiding a second Atari debacle.

In the end, the Grundig Game2000 was a huge success in Europe, and a moderate success overseas. It was so popular, that Grundig kept producing consoles and games for the Game2000 until 1990. The console was also a financial success for Grundig, as well as Philips.
 
An obvious example would be the Sega Dreamcast now floundering because of the heavy competition from the Playstation 2 and settle for either second or third or even fourth place in the console wars.
 

cumbria

Banned
In my thread Enoch's National Front I toch on this subject.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=162698

While consoles like the Nintendo Ent Sym, Sega Master System and the Atari 2600 were big in America and Japan, Britain was and quite a few European countries had mass numbers of 8bit cassette driven computers like the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC 464.

sinclair_zx-spectrum_hr_1s.jpg


The Amstrad CPC 464 was of course the daddy with the best graphics and kit.

amstrad_cpc_464.jpg


The games took a lot longer to load in but were much cheaper and better than the consoles.

old-commodore-64.jpg


Then British computing in the form of Amstrad made its biggest disaster bringing out the GX4000 an 8bit Console at the time as the 16 bit consoles like the Sega Mega Drive and Super Nintendo came out.

gx4000.jpg


Amstrad didnt even put any serious marketing into it and only brought out about 25 games for it.

Thus ended British Computer/Console gaming.
 
This is interesting to me for the options open if this takes root. In the Former USSR and China no NES was ever sold legally. So to counter the demand a company made the Dendy/ Pegasus. Oddly enough its considered an almost perfect hardware clone.

So WI someone started selling these copies to the world? Cheap Russian made machines which one finds at a flea market for $120 instead of 200.

photos1m.jpg
 
In the mid- to late-1980s Nintendo were looking to move into having games on a new technology called CD-ROMs. Rather than develop their own version of the nascent technology they teamed up with pioneers, Sony, to make a CD games console. The partnership with Sony was broken, and Nintendo instead opted to work with Sony's arch-rivals, Philips.

Sony opted to use their research to release the Sony PlayStation.

In the end Nintendo opted not to embrace optical disc technology until 2001.

Philips used their research to make the incredibly maligned Philips CD-i.

Instead of three consoles, a good Nintendo one, a good Sony one, and a piss-poor Philips one, what if we'd had the Nintendo PlayStation? Or the Nintendo CD-i?
 
While consoles like the Nintendo Ent Sym, Sega Master System and the Atari 2600 were big in America and Japan, Britain was and quite a few European countries had mass numbers of 8bit cassette driven computers like the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC 464.

*Picture of a ZX Spectrum*

We had one of these. You had to know you would want to play a game about an hour before you did so because of the load times. But at the time it was really more of a computer than a console.
 
If so, then Dungeon Keeper 3 and Duke Nukem Forever

A RELEASED DUKE NUKEM FOREVER? An event of this magnitude would cause major anomalies in the space-time continuum :eek:

By the way, i haven't seen yet a videogame based on Twilight.
I wonder how crappy it would be.
 
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